Azerbaijan, Baku, 17 March / corr. Trend S. Ilhamgizi/ The bloc Azadlig believes that the lack of agreement between the Government and Venice Commission on the changes to the composition of the election commissions does not mean that the Election Code will not be changed.
"The government can withdraw from its position shortly before the elections and form the composition of the election commissions on an equal basis," Ali Aliyev, the co-chairman of Azadlig bloc said to Trend on 17 March.
The Azerbaijani government and Venice Commission did not reach an agreement on the forming of the election commission in the country. "We are ready to continue talks with the Venice Commission regarding forming the election commissions. However, there are no unified standards in Europe in this regard," Latif Huseynov, the member of Azerbaijani delegation and the head of the department on State Building of Azerbaijani parliament said to Trend .
The Azadlig bloc believes that the changes to the Election code will depend on what degree Azerbaijani society, political parties and international organizations will put up resistance. "It was previously expected that the meeting with between the government and the Venice Commission members will yield no results. The fact that the Venice Commission cannot adopt any decision in this regard is due to the lack of information of the Commission about Azerbaijan," the co-chairman of Azadlig bloc said.
The opposition Musavat (Equality) party believes that the government will change its position shortly before the elections. "The fact that the agreement to form the election commissions on an equal basis has not been reached demonstrates that the government does not want to hold independent and fair elections," Isa Gambar, the head of Musavat party said Trend .
At present, the election commissions in Azerbaijan is formed of independent MPs and majority and minority party parliament members. The opposition parties demand that the election commissions be formed on an equal basis from the opposition and government.
The officials of Presidential Administration, Parliament, the activists of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party believe that the current composition of the election commissions has already proved itself and therefore there is no need to change the current format.