Azerbaijan, Baku / corr. Trend E.Huseyinli / Ali Orujov, the Press Secretary of the Azerbaijani National Independent Party (ANIP), has stated that the opposition Azerbaijani Citizen and Development Party attempted to gain registration using false documents.
According to Orujov, Ali Aliyev the Chairman of the Citizen and Development Party wants to gain registration by using documents and lists, which he acquired when he was Chairman of the ANIP and has not yet given them back. Orujov hopes that the Yasamal District Court will prove the ACDP's attempts to be false, and the truth clarified by the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry.
As to the 4th item on the Law on Political Parties, a party should have at least 1,000 members in order to register. Orujov considers that the ACDP has only three members. The rest of the members are from the stolen list of the ANIP.
Billur Humbatov, the Deputy Chairman of the ACDP, called the ANIP's Chairman words "nonsense".
According to Humbatov, the ACDP does not need documents from the ANIP, which were stolen from documents belonging to the Chairman of the ACDP. Humbatov noted that some 3,000 people are members of the ACDP.
The ANIP was founded in 1992 and is the first party in Azerbaijan to be registered. Etibar Mammadov was the founder and Chairman of the opposition party by the end of 2004. Presently, Mammadov is the Deputy of the International Democratic Union.
The ACDP has been holding conventions since the end of 2006, after separating from the ANIP.
The Justice Ministry of Azerbaijan has not yet registered the party, which appealed the lawsuit.