BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11
By Huseyn Safarov - Trend:
Conclusions and statements voiced by the OSCE/ODIHR mission regarding the early parliamentary elections held in Azerbaijan on Feb. 9 are biased and have nothing to do with reality, the founder of the expert-analytical network PolitRUS Vitaly Arkov told Trend.
According to Vitaly Arkov, this is just one of many attempts of European structures to put pressure on the leadership of Azerbaijan, especially since the minor violations indicated in the report of the OSCE/ODIHR observers are purely technical in nature and did not affect the voting results.
"It is important to note that in their anti-Azerbaijani rhetoric, these structures are not independent, but only fulfill a certain task assigned for them. There is a clear task to punish Azerbaijan for its desire to return its territories occupied by the neighboring state, for its truly independent foreign policy and its refusal to take part in the Western campaign against its main historical allies and fraternal peoples - Russia, Turkey and Iran," the Russian expert said.
Moreover, as the expert noted, Azerbaijan is not the first one among the post-Soviet states to the address of which accusations such as "non-transparent elections" by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Bureau for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) are voiced.
"So, recently, in November and December 2019, OSCE/ODIHR characterized the elections in the lower chambers of the parliaments of Belarus and Uzbekistan in almost the same way, which caused fair outrage not only in Minsk and Tashkent, but also in other states," Vitaly Arkov said.
"The head of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Leonid Slutsky gave a rigorous assessment of the preconceived and politically biased statements of the OSCE/ODIHR during the PACE winter session in January 2020 in Strasbourg by urging his colleagues for objectivity," the expert added.
According to the political analyst, every year, Azerbaijan improves its positions in the authoritative rating of the most powerful countries in the world.
"The large-scale economic and political reforms initiated by President Ilham Aliyev will allow Azerbaijan to enter a new period of its development and strengthen its leadership in the region," the expert added.
Nevertheless, as the political analyst noted, contrary to the expectations of representatives of the Azerbaijani opposition, all international observers, with the exception of the OSCE/ODIHR mission, almost unanimously stated that the elections to the Azerbaijani Parliament were held at a high level.
"Despite the naive expectations of the opposition, reports of international observation missions greatly disappointed them. They failed to question the election results and democracy in Azerbaijan. Contrary to the forecasts of some circles that hoped to justify their political impotence with the help of their expected electoral failures, there were not any serious violations at polling stations; on the contrary, everything was organized at a high level. Representatives of the opposition had to be content with methods familiar to them, such as distributing all kinds of video clips and negative, unfounded comments on social networks, which indicates the political insolvency and inability of the opposition to compete," the expert concluded.