BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 11
By Samir Ali - Trend:
Envious of modern Azerbaijan's success, some opposition groups want to stay afloat, seeking minor flaws, the editor-in-chief of Azerbaijan's SƏS (Voice) newspaper, political expert Bahruz Guliyev told Trend.
Bahruz Guliyev made the remark while commenting on the preliminary conclusion of the international election observation mission, consisting of representatives of the OSCE/ODIHR, OSCE PA and PACE ,on the early elections to the Azerbaijani Parliament.
According to Guliyev, this time these groups are trying to attract attention, without any reason casting a shadow on the results of the early parliamentary elections held in Azerbaijan on Feb. 9.
"These groups have always tried to denigrate the elections held in the country. In particular, noting the minor flaws indicated in the reports of international organizations, they inflate them, trying to create hype. The results of the parliamentary elections were highly appreciated by many authoritative structures, international organizations and monitoring groups, their official reports and statements were published by the country's media," Guliyev said.
Bahruz Guliyev noted that the report contains a number of positive aspects, which emphasize the transparency and democratic nature of the electoral process.
"The report said that a large number of candidates were registered. This proves that these elections differ from the past ones by various advantages. There were twice as many candidates as in the previous elections. Representatives of 19 political parties participated in them, 89,000 local and 883 international observers conducted observations. In fact, it pleases that many European structures that previously disseminated negative reports based on unfounded data already recognize the realities of strengthening democratic values in Azerbaijan," the analyst added.
Guliyev noted that the reports of these structures also say that the elections were well organized, despite the short time and noted progress in the work of the Central Election Commission (CEC).
"Indeed, the CEC made every effort to apply the principles of transparency, including, the installation of numerous webcams in the polling stations, and the CEC website almost every hour provided the public with information from district election commissions. The CEC meetings on the elections were open to both local and foreign observers and reporters, which is very important for the timely provision of information. The assessment of these realities in the reports proves that European organizations look differently and understand the dynamically developing process of democratization in Azerbaijan," Bahruz Guliyev said.
"It is also encouraging that the OSCE/ODIHR, OSCE PA and PACE missions, although not directly but at least indirectly recognized the aggressive policy of Armenia, stated that as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, elections couldn't be held in 10 constituencies that are completely or partially outside Azerbaijan's control. We hope that in the future this issue will be brought up for discussion of these structures and the double standards policy will not be used. Azerbaijan wants to hope that this moment, which negatively affects the election results, namely the aggressive policy of Armenia, would be condemned by the international community," said Guliyev.