There are no conditions for fair presidential elections in Azerbaijan - EMDSC

Baku/12.12.23/Turan: Election Monitoring and Democracy Education Center  (EMDSC) assessed the legal and political environment in connection with the early presidential elections in Azerbaijan scheduled for February 7, 2024. The early presidential elections were called "without serious political necessity, without open public discussions, without the participation of all interested parties in the electoral process, including political parties and presidential candidates."

At the same time, the principle of holding elections "within a reasonable time", established by international documents, which Azerbaijan has also joined, was not considered. In general, no reasonable explanation was given for the need for early elections. EMDSC notes with regret that currently there are about 200 political prisoners, including journalists, public activists and representatives of political parties.

Restrictions on freedom of speech are being applied, new laws "On the Media" and "On Political Parties" are in force, which are regressive in nature, independent media and web pages are being blocked, and mass persecution of activists is taking place. All this, on the eve of early presidential elections, makes it difficult to ensure democratic conditions related to the electoral process.

At the same time, the ongoing legal and political pressure on civil society and human rights organizations has exhausted civil society's ability to work to educate voters, protect their rights and monitor elections.

It is also pointed out that more than 50 recommendations of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, two conclusions of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and more than 50 decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on violations of the electoral rights of Azerbaijani citizens have not been implemented.

EMDSC believes that a competitive political environment has not been created in the country, freedom of expression, assembly and association are not ensured, and there are no opportunities for free activity of the media, political parties and civil society.

One of the important issues to be resolved on the eve of the elections is the simplification of the existing complex mechanism of voter registration, conducting truthful and understandable calculations of the number of voters. Unfortunately, since 2009, the information of the State Statistics Committee on the number of persons over the age of 18 does not correspond to the voter lists published by the CEC, and the authorities do not respond to these inconsistencies.

EMDSC considers it necessary to implement measures in the following areas in order to hold early presidential elections on February 7, 2024 in a free, transparent and competitive manner:

* Release those who are considered political prisoners by local and international human rights organizations;

* All political parties should be given the right to hold their own meetings, as well as peaceful protests;

* It is necessary to make democratic changes to the laws to remove obstacles to the free activity of local and international NGOs in the country, and to stop the persecution of civil society activists;

* Harassment of journalists and bloggers should be stopped, and measures to block independent and opposition web portals should be lifted;

* The Azerbaijani authorities should ask the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to invite election observation missions to the country. -16D-