Azerbaijan, Baku, 8 February / corr. Trend G. Jabiyev/ The Open Society opposition party of Azerbaijan will not support any presidential candidates from the opposition in the presidential elections to be held in October 2008.
"If the leader of the party Rasul Guliyev does not return to Azerbaijan until the elections, the party Open Society will not support any candidates from the opposition," Yagub Abbasov, the chairman of the Supreme Assembly of the party said to Trend on 8 February.
The party has worked out a program on the return of the ex-speaker Rasul Guliyev, who is an emigrant of Azerbaijan in US. The program will be sent to Guliyev so that he can become familiar with it.
According to Abbasov, the party supports the atmosphere of mutual confidence and political reconciliation in Azerbaijan. "The leaders of the opposition claiming the post of president have lower ratings than Ilham Aliyev, the candidate from the government", he said.
"We have supported the candidates from the opposition up to now, but none of them could achieve good results. The views and ways of approach have changed nowadays. The traditional ways do not work and the opposition cannot take steps in accordance with the realities of the present," Abbasov said.
The Open Society Party was founded in April 2007. The leader of the party is Rasul Guliyev, the ex-speaker of Azerbaijan who has currently emigrated to the US.