Ministry of Justice re-registers "Musavat Party"

Baku/09.09.23/Turan: The Ministry of Justice has re-registered the "Musavat Party". This was reported to Turan by its chairman Arif Hajily.

According to him, on September 9, a representative of the Party was invited to the Ministry of Justice, where he was presented with a letter approving the registration data of Musavat members. Nevertheless, Hajily believes that the new Law "On Political Parties" is a mechanism for maintaining control over the parties. "Because the letter of the Ministry of Justice also notes that the party must submit certain information to this department at various times. This is to maintain control over the parties and create obstacles to their activities," Hajily said. After the approval of "Musavat", two other leading opposition parties - the "Party of People's Front of Azerbaijan" and the "Republican Alternative" - remain unregistered.

Total number of re-registered parties reached 15.

Earlier the re-registration in the Ministry of Justice passed:  "Yeni Azerbaijan" (chairman President Ilham Aliyev); "White Party" (Tural Abbasly); "Civil Solidarity" (MP Sabir Rustamkhanly); "National Revival Movement" (Faraj Guliyev); "National Front" (MP Razi Nurullayev); "Ana Vaten" (Fazail Agamali), "Rights and Justice" (Ali Insanov); "National Independence" (Arzukhan Alizadeh), "Umid" (Igbad Agazadeh), "Democratic Party" (Sardar Jalaloglu), "Great Azerbaijan" (Elshad Musayev), "People's Party" (Panah Huseyn), "Vahdat" (Tahir Kerimli) and "Azad Veten" (Akif Nagi).

Total of 27 Parties applied to the Ministry of Justice for re-registration.

The re-registration of the Parties is a requirement of the new Law "On Political Parties", which came into force in January this year. According to its terms, a party that submits to the Ministry of Justice the register data of at least 5,000 of its members can be registered with the state.

Note that the Law was criticised by the opposition. In its conclusion, the Venice Commission pointed out the Law's inconsistency with the Council of Europe standards and recommended to revise the document. However, the Azerbaijani authorities ignored these demands. -03В06-