The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Europe’s main election watchdog, did not monitor the poll because it said restrictions imposed by the authorities made credible monitoring impossible.
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Voters in Azerbaijan cast ballots in a parliamentary election boycotted by Europe’s largest monitoring agency and all of the tightly controlled South Caucasus country’s established opposition parties. “I would have voted for the opposition, but they are boycotting the elections”, she said.
A soldier exits a voting booth at a polling station in Baku yesterday during the parliamentary election in Azerbaijan.
The parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan were free, open and competitive, said representatives of various monitoring missions and delegations who monitored preparations for the elections and the course of the voting.
It denied the existence of any political prisoners, and it frequently describes negative publicity as a Western agenda to discredit Azerbaijan.
Worldwide rights groups have accused Azerbaijani authorities of limiting dissent.
The leader of the opposition Musavat party, Isa Gambar, told AFP that a win for Aliyev’s Yeni (New) Azerbaijan party was a foregone conclusion “in the absence of strong opposition candidates and amid widespread violations”. Despite a few shortcomings the results expressed the will of the people, it said.
Human Rights Watch says that 35 journalists and rights and political activists had been jailed a year ago on trumped up charges and that “the crackdown continued at a dizzying pace”.
The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights rejected Baku’s request that it send only 131 short- and long-term observers, saying it needed three times as many to do its job properly, Radio Free Europe reports.
Voters within the oil-rich Caspian Ocean nation of Azerbaijan cast ballots Sun.in a parliamentary election that’s expected to secure the ruling party bash’s dominance.
Over 700 candidates from 13 parties and one bloc are standing for the 125-seat, single-house parliament, the Milli Majlis, to be elected for a five-year term.
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According to the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan, a few 5.2 million Azeri citizens are eligible to take part in the polls in the mainly Muslim country of over 9 million people.
