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Unwillingness of Azerbaijani Opposition to Participate in Forthcoming Presidential Elections Reveals Party Weakness : New Azerbaijan Party’s Deputy Executive Secretary

Politics Materials 14 August 2007 11:39 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. I.Alizadeh / MP Siyavush Novruzov, Deputy Executive Secretary of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, has stated that the unwillingness of the Azerbaijani Opposition Party to participate in the forthcoming presidential elections reveals the parties' weakness.

"The opposition has no influence both in the country and abroad. Therefore, boycotting the forthcoming presidential elections will not affect this process," MP said.

Opposition parties have declared that if changes are not injected in the election legislation of Azerbaijan and the election commission to be formed on a parity basis with the participation of both the opposition and the New Azerbaijan Party, opposition parties will not attend the 2008 presidential elections.

"The polls have revealed that the candidate from the New Azerbaijan Party for presidential elections 2008, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, will win by majority votes. It means that opposition parties will lose the impeding elections and in order to avoid embarrassment they do not want to participate in the elections," MP added.

The Azerbaijani opposition Party has boycotted several elections, including the presidential elections in 1998. At that time the opposition parties demanded changes to the election legislation and to form an election commission on a parity basis. The largest Azerbaijani opposition bloc of Azadlyg and Rasul Guliyev, the leader of the Azerbaijani Open Society Party, stated that they would not participate in the forthcoming presidential elections.

The Azerbaijani election commission is formed from MPs of the ruling party, represented in the Milli Majlis (Azerbaijani Parliament) and independent MPs. International organizations have demanded the re-establishment of the election commission. For this reason, the European organizations are holding negotiations with the Azerbaijani Government.

The presidential elections will be held in Azerbaijan on 15 October 2008. Notably, NAP was founded in Nakhchivan on 1992. The All-Nation Leader, late Ex-President Heydar Aliyev was the first Chairman of the Party. President Ilham Aliyev is the present chairman of the Party, which has been in power for 14 years.

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