Azerbaijan will do Its Best to Legitimize the Results of the Elections

• 10.26.2015, 11:58
• Greta Avetisyan
•  Region,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  Analytics

November 1, 2015 will be remembered in the history of Azerbaijan as a day of parliamentary elections from which the expectations of the society, to put it mildly, were not great, whereas the vision of the authorities on the future of the country after the elections was quite ambitious.

Yes, these elections will not differ from the previous ones, but taking into consideration Azerbaijan-West current tense relations, the authorities of the countries will put greater efforts for holding the elections and legitimizing their results, than before.

One of the tools to legitimize the elections and present it like that to the international community is the existence of international observers in the elections, on which Azerbaijan puts great emphasis. According to the latest data published by Azerbaijan’s Central Election Committee, 426 observers from 46 countries will observe the elections. Azerbaijani authorities present this as a pretty solid indicator for ensuring free, just and transparent elections. This year, however, observers of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly will not be present at "caviar hospitality" of Azerbaijan. The reason why the ODIHR refused to send observers to Azerbaijan was putting restrictions for ODIHR observers by Baku. OSCE PA followed the example of ODIHR. OSCE PA President Ilkka Kanerva explained that it would be appropriate, if their vital and close partner ODIHR cannot observe, they also do not observe in Azerbaijan.

Other tools for legitimizing the elections are ensuring the variety of political parties participating in the election campaign and the creation of imitation of having hot elections. Thus, according to CEC data, 769 candidates will vie for 125 seats in the parliamentary elections. This means that for one place 6 candidates will compete. It is interesting that just few days ago the Azerbaijani media was writing about 1,246 candidates, presenting this number as unprecedented. However, on the eve of the elections 477 people just decided to withdraw their candidacy.

Taking into consideration all these, it should be mentioned that a more interesting period in Azerbaijan will start after the results of the elections are published, when the international community will start giving assessments. Given the “caviar hospitalities,” there are not great expectations that the international observers will voice about serious election fraud, but taking into consideration not only announcements, but also certain steps towards human rights violations and repressions in Azerbaijan by the West, one should at least expect that this time the assessments will not be far from the reality.