Vote Criticised as Flawed

This weekend's parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan did not meet a number of OSCE commitments and Council of Europe standards for democratic elections. Anja von Cysewski reports

The assessment by the OSCE came after the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party claimed victory in the polls on Monday, saying it had won almost half of the seats in parliament. The opposition bloc, however, speaks of widespread fraud and has announced peaceful protest rallies for Tuesday.

The elections in Azerbaijan were seen as an important test of democracy for the former Soviet republic – but, according to Western observers monitoring the polls, this test seems to have failed. The OSCE which had 660 observers in the country on Monday said that the vote did not meet international standards.

Among the shortcomings cited by the organisation were restrictions on the right to free assembly and irregularities in the vote count.

With 90 percent of the votes counted so far, election officials say that the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan – New Azerbaijan – party of president Ilham Aliyev has won 62 of the 125 seats while the main opposition party Azadlyq is said to have only got five seats.

Around 40 seats are believed to have gone to self-declared independent candidates many of whom are, however, pro-government as well.

"Most falsified elections in the country's history"

The OSCE's criticism of the vote is likely to give the country's opposition bloc more leverage along with a reason to challenge the result. Members of the opposition have already called the elections "the most falsified in the history of Azerbaijan" and announced they would take to the streets starting on Tuesday.

While the opposition aims at overturning the election result, the general secretary of the winning Yeni Azerbaijain party defended the outcome:

"The opposition parties speak of falsifications, yes, but there is no concrete sign yet as to when, how and under which circumstances such falsifications might have occurred", the general secretary said on Monday.

Recount as possible outcome

In the face of the heavy domestic and international criticism an aide to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliev has, however, indicated that a recount could be one possible outcome.

Sunday's polls were the first since Ilham Aliyev replaced his father Heydar in 2003.

Before the elections some Western observers were optimistic that the president was in fact trying to reform his administration, gradually making concessions to pressures for more democracy.

Aliyev himself had this to say: "This elections are very important for the future development country. Azerbaijan is a presidential republic but still elections to the parliament will create better conditions for a future normal development of the country."

That's what western countries claim they want to see, but not necessarily for altruistic reasons.

For the United States Azerbaijan is first of all strategically important sitting as it does on the Caspian Sea between Iran, Russia and Turkey.

Secondly and perhaps even more crucially, the country is one of the major oil producers of the region and oil-greedy western countries are interested in seeing a stable and democratic rule in Azerbaijan.

Anja von Cysewski

Qantara.de

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OSCE website
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
Human Rights Watch on Azerbaijan