Azerbaijan, Baku, 23 August / Trend corr. E.Babayev / The opposition Democratic Party of Azerbaijan (DPA) has stated that the candidate from the ruling new Azerbaijan party (NAP) would win the upcoming presidential elections.
"Ilham Aliyev will gain 100% win over other candidates. Non-recognition of this fact means one has lost his reality sense," Sardar Jalaloglu, chairman of DPA, told Trend .
The Azadlig bloc, which unites three opposition parties - Popular Front, Liberal and Citizen and Development), as well as Classical Popular Front, Open Society, Musavat, Civil Solidarity, Democratic, Great Establishment, Azadlig parties and Eldar Namazov, head of the Public Forum For the name of Azerbaijan refused to participate in the forthcoming presidential elections.
Before, the Great Establishment party (GEP) refused from participation in the elections. However, on 21 August, the party Supreme Assembly took a decision to participate in the elections and to nominate the candidature of Fazail Gazanfaroglu, chairman of GEP. There are 16 presidential candidates and six of them are from political parties. They are Ilham Aliyev, the candidate from the ruling New Azerbaijan party, Igbal Agazade -chairman of Umid party, Hafiz Hajiyev - Muasir Musavat, Gudrat Hasanguliyev- Popular Front of Unified Azerbaijan, Fuad Aliyev -Liberal-Democratic, and Mais Gulaliyev - Green party of Azerbaijan.
Jalaloglu said that the aforesaid candidates cannot win Ilham Aliyev even in the democratic elections conditions. At present, the governmental reserves are enabled by 80%. It means that the candidate from the authorities will win with majority.
DPA chairman said that the party would not change its decision regarding non-participation in the elections. "If we change our decision, we may exceed the time permitted for a move. We are incapable to collect 40,000 signatures now. DPA decided to refuse from participation in the presidential elections after the supplements and changes introduced into the Election Code," Jalaloglu said.
"Imagine the candidates can use free air time onlyon the Public TV after the changed made into the Election Code. This TV is not broadcasted all over the whole territory of the country. We revealed that small part of population watch this channel. Furthermore, taking into consideration the fact that the pre-election campaign term was also reduced, candidates will face difficulties to reach success. At current pre-election conditions only the candidate from authorities will be able to hold successful agitation. One needs time, money and human resources to win in the elections. There is not the aforesaid resources and therefore, we refused to participate in the elections," Jalaloglu said.
DPA was founded by Sardar Jalaloglu in 1991. The party took a radical position against the Government until 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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