Azerbaijan, Baku, 29 August / corr. Trend E.Babayev / The opposition Azerbaijani Democratic Party (ADP) believes that negotiations to establish a new union of opposition pursue private interests. "It is obvious that negotiations to establish new cooperation format of opposition pursue corporate interests," Gurban Mammadov, member of the party's Supreme Assembly, told Trend on 28 August.
The presidential elections will be held in Azerbaijan on 15 October. Azadlig bloc, uniting three opposition parties (the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, the Liberal Party and the Citizen and Development Party), the Classical Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, the Open Society Party, the Musavat Party, the Civil Solidarity Party, the Democratic Party, the Great Establishment Party, the Azadlig, the National Independence Party, the Social Democrat Party, as well as Eldar Namazov, the head of the Public Forum of 'For Azerbaijan', refused to participate in the elections with own candidates.
The Azadlig bloc Board of Chairmen made a decision in its meeting last week to establish a cooperation centre of the parties, which refused to join the presidential elections. Fuad Mustafayev, the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan functionary, was authorized to negotiate on behalf of the bloc in this direction. It was decided to consider the upcoming presidential elections as illegitimate during the negotiations of the parties boycotting the elections.
It is sheer lunacy to announce the elections as illegitimate now, Mammadov said. "The elections should take place and only then it can be assessed," he said. The member of the ADP Supreme Assembly said that his party did not join the new cooperation centre of opposition and it meant that this unification did not reflect a real opposition.
"Developments in last years proved that unification of the opposition is impossible without the ADP. Should the ADP does not join this union, nobody will seriously approach to the new cooperation centre," Mammadov said.
According to Mammadov, the ADP is interested in the establishment of sincere union. "The opposition should not lay down any condition to establish new alliance of the opposition. It is necessary to come to terms and to form such union," Mammadov said.
Sardar Jalaloglu established the ADP in 1991. The party pursued a radical oppositional course with respect to the authorities until January 2007. The ADP began to pursue a new political course, preferring dialogues with the authorities in January 2007. Rasul Guliyev, a former chairman of the party, and his supporters protested against this change in policy and left the party, establishing their Open Society Party.
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