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Composition of Azerbaijani Opposition Bloc to be Re-Considered

Politics Materials 3 March 2008 13:45 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, 3 March / Trend corr. G.Jabiyev / The Open Society Party (OSP) of Azerbaijan, headed by the Ex-Speaker Rasul Guliyev, may become a member of the Azadlig bloc, which unites three opposition parties.

"The Popular Front and Liberal parties, which are leading parties of the bloc, positively respond to the initiative to unite the opposition. A meeting headed by the two parties will be held on 4 March," Zamina Dunyamaliyeva, OSP leader's adviser, stated to Trend .

Azadlig bloc unites three opposition parties, has developed a set of proposals regarding changes and supplements on 20 issues and submitted them to the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. One of the issues envisaged is to form election commissions from parties who collected over 1% of the total number of votes in the last parliamentary elections. This means election commissions must unite representatives of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party and opposition Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (DPA), Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan (PFPA), National Unity Party of Azerbaijan (NUPA), Liberal-Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (LDPA), Social Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (SDPA) and Musavat.

Dunyamaliyev did not exclude that OSP may join Azadlig. "Everything depends on the results of the elections. We have some differences concerning the elections. The Bloc supports boycotting the elections, but we are against this. However, Azadlig has not made the final decision to boycott the elections. We may reach a common opinion as a result of negotiations," Dunyamaliyeva said.

Ali Aliyev, Chairman of the Citizen and Development Party and member of Azadlig, stated to Trend that decisions within the bloc are made in the form of consensus. Aliyev said that the Citizen and Development Party would vote against OSP joining Azadlig if the party will only hold negotiations with the Popular Front and Liberal parties.

OSP was founded in April 2007. Rasul Guliyev, ex-Speaker of Azerbaijan, who has been living in the United States, is the leader of the party. Guliyev was chairman of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan until February 2007. In January 2007, the party took a new political course and improved relations with the authorities. Protesting against such an action Rasul Guliyev, the ex-chairman, and his supporters left the party and founded the Open Society party.

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