Elections on April 11 - did not meet the standards of free elections -EMDSC

Baku / 12.04.18 / Turan: Elections Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDSC) assessed all phases of the presidential elections on April 11. The EMDSC carried out election monitoring in cooperation with 22 long-term and 166 short-term independent observers.

On election day, 125 polling stations were selected by random selection in all 125 constituencies.

Observers noted "on the voting day and during the counting of votes" traditional and serious violations of the law, damaging the election process ".

47% of polling stations recorded facts of voting by persons whose names were not on the voter lists.

At 53% of the sites there were cases of falsification of falsified bulletins, at the same

The number of polling stations recorded repeated votes of the same persons. Only in 8% of the sites there were no serious violations. On the day of the elections, there were facts of serious pressure on observers and journalists.

Observers cooperating with the EMDSC stated that there are serious discrepancies between the actual number of voters and the declared CEC.

Mass ballot stuffing in more than half of the polling stations and artificial overstating of the turnout gives grounds to question the reliability of official data on the election results.

The overall assessment of the EMDSC is that the April 11 elections were held in an atmosphere of political pressure, the lack of equal opportunities, restrictions on choice and violation of standards for free and fair elections. -06D-