How did the parliamentary elections go?

Preliminary results of the snap parliamentary elections held in Azerbaijan on September 1 have been announced. This was reported on September 2 by Mazahir Panahov, the chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC).

The CEC chairman stated that 2,196,711 voters participated in the election: "The voter turnout was 37.27%."

According to preliminary results, 88 individuals who received new mandates have become members of the sixth convocation of the Milli Majlis.

Mirali Guseynov, chairman of the public association "Study of Democracy," discussed this in the program "Complex Question."

According to him, the results of the elections were expected. However, they were marked by an unprecedented abundance of negative phenomena and were even more depressing than the previous ones. The country did not create an environment for free elections. On the contrary, democratic institutions were weakened, steps were taken against civil society and independent media, and amendments were made to the law "On Political Parties" (specifically, a quantitative threshold of 5,000 members was established). As a result, political parties were re-registered, and their number was reduced from 58 to 27.

The amendment to the law "On Media" also affected the election process, leading to the closure of many independent media outlets, and their founders were arrested.

Organizations monitoring the elections were also incapacitated. Thus, fertile ground was created for election fraud.

"The entire voting process was accompanied by a stream of reports from the field about violations, which, however, is not surprising, as all necessary measures were initially taken to prevent the holding of free and fair elections," said Guseynov.

The expert emphasized that the fear in society, the non-participation of major contenders in the elections, as well as the formal nature of the participation of those who did join the process, led to such flawed elections.

He highlighted that the only force capable of preventing this is society, but unfortunately, its political activity is insufficient to change the situation.