Azerbaijan, Baku, 7 July / Trend corr E.Babayev/ World Azerbaijanis Congress (WAC) will not support ay candidate during the presidential elections to take place in Azerbaijan this autumn. "Only if I nominate myself for the elections, WAC, the chairman of which I am, will support me, but the support will not be open," MP Sabir Rustamkhanli, Chairman of the Civil Solidarity Party (CSP), said to Trend on 7 July.
WAC was divided into two parts as a result of the disagreements inside the organization and 11 members out of 16 members of Administration decided to remove chairman Gholamreza Sabri Tabrizi from his post and elected Sabir Rustamkhanli as chairman. The remaining part of the members supported Gholamreza Sabri Tabrizi and held a meeting on 21-23 June in Brussels in the European Parliament. Some 300 representatives and guests from 25 countries took part in the WAC meeting presided over by Rustamkhanli in Koln on 6-8 June. Changes were made to the Charter and Program of the organization. A co-chairmanship institute was established at WAC with Sabir Rustamkhanli and Furudin Parvizniya being elected co-chairmen. Gholamreza Sabri Tabrizi considers Koln meeting to be illegitimate.
Rustamkhanli said WAC is considering problems regarding South Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the work of diaspora. "Therefore, organization's open participation in the elections is impossible. However, WAC will obviously support me from aside not getting involved in the process openly. Should I not become a candidate, WAC will not support any candidate," Rustamkhanli said adding that he had not yet decided where to nominate for presidency. "By 15 July Civil Solidarity Party will hold a meeting to take a final decision on upcoming presidential elections. Party's members want me to become a presidential contender. But other factors must be taken into consideration. It is difficult to reach changes through elections. We will take a final decision taking into account all these and other issues," said Rustamkhanli.
The CSP was formed by a group of intellectuals headed by a leader of the Azerbaijan National Liberation Movement Sabir Rustamkhanli on 26 September, 1992. The party took part in the parliamentary elections of 1995, 2000, 2005, and presidential elections of 2003, municipal elections of 1999, 2004. Azerbaijan national poet, MP Sabir Rustamkhanli, was Azerbaijani Press and Information Minister from 1991 to 1995 and ran for presidency in 2003. Presently, CSP is preparing for its fourth congress.
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