Expert: "The European Parliament is to observe the elections"

Baku/12.03.18/Turan: Less than a month remains to the early presidential elections in Azerbaijan. Responsible for the conduct of elections, the structures work at an accelerated pace, special boards for propaganda posters have already been installed near the polling stations, the points themselves are equipped with special cabs.

Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission of the country, after counting and verifying the signatures of voters, has already registered four presidential candidates: incumbent President IlhamAliyev, MP Zahid Oruj, chairman of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, MP GudratHasanguliyev, chairman of the Social Democratic Party ArazAlizadeh.

Registration of election observers continues. As you know, representatives of international organizations are invited to monitor the electoral process. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), after a short hesitation, decided to participate in the election process as observers and sent its mission to Baku. The mission consists of 310 people - 280 of them will observe the election process directly on election day, and 30 people are long-term observers.

A few days ago, an observation mission headed by CorinYonker held a press conference in Baku, where she stated that the role of the organization was to observe and evaluate the election process, and stressed that the mission was not interested in any particular election result. At the same time, the head of the mission tactfully avoided numerous questions from journalists about the transparency of early elections, the implementation by the Azerbaijani government of the previous recommendations of the ODIHR.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe agreed to participate in the process of monitoring the elections in Azerbaijan, saying that the OSCE will send observers as well as the OSCE. Unlike the two above-mentioned structures, the European Parliament refused to participate in the monitoring of elections in Azerbaijan. The co-chairs of the deputy group for supporting democracy and election coordination David McAllister and Linda Makeen said that the assessment of the elections will also not be given, adding that the official position of the European Parliament on elections will be reflected in the report on EU-Baku relations adopted before the summer holidays.

All these international events , not characteristic of the previous elections in Azerbaijan, caused a lot of sense. Some argued that international organizations had already agreed with the authorities on the course and results of the elections, and some were of the opinion that the refusal of the European Parliament could be regarded as a boycott.

An election expert, human rights activist AnarMammadli, commenting on the press conference of the OSCE ODIHR mission to Turan and the discussions that arose around it, said that the conference was the opening of the mission.

"She was familiar with the mission. In principle, all OSCE missions begin their work in a similar format. But the deplorable fact is that the head of the mission did not express her attitude to Azerbaijan's implementation of the ODIHR's recommendations made after the presidential election five years ago, as well as to recent developments. She evaded this topic, explaining this by saying that she had never been to Azerbaijan before, does not know the previous situation. However, the OSCE recommendations are documented, there are documents of the assessment mission, and Yorker could get acquainted with them before visiting Azerbaijan. Because these documents are prepared by the same experts as she. It would be nice if the mission expressed its attitude to these important points,"Mammadli said.

The expert noted that he negatively regards the European Parliament's refusal to participate in monitoring the elections.

"Now there is a process of negotiations on signing a strategic partnership agreement between Azerbaijan and the European Union. Therefore, it would be good if the European Parliament took part in monitoring the elections. It is especially necessary to take into account that to date there are very few monitoring groups in Azerbaijan, even the number of OSCE observers is extremely small. Local civil society, political parties cannot observe the course of elections. In this situation, the arrival of deputies and representatives of the European Parliament, monitoring the situation with their own eyes would be more effective,"Mammadli said.

Touching upon the reasons for the European Parliament's refusal, the expert noted that the Europeans obviously did not want to spoil relations with the Azerbaijani authorities.

"They are preparing a report on relations with Azerbaijan, which should reflect the issue of presidential elections. However, for completeness of this report, they had to come to the country and meet with representatives of political parties, civil society, and see the elections with their own eyes,"concluded A. Mammadli.--0--