ODIHR eyes monitoring presidential election in Azerbaijan

OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) "looks forward to" monitoring the upcoming elections later this year in Azerbaijan among 6 other countries, such as Georgia, Germany, Norway, Austria, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. "We continue our efforts to follow electoral developments across the OSCE region: I am pleased to note that the ODIHR has now observed elections in 56 of the 57 OSCE participating States," Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, Director of the ODIHR, told TURAN's Washington DC correspondent. The one remaining country that stands out is Russia.

"Their observation was a major undertaking under complex and challenging circumstances... As you will recall, ODIHR was not able to observe those elections in 2007 and 2008, and we had to overcome that legacy. The challenges involved, however, were met, and I am proud of the two final reports that these two missions produced, and confident in the value of the recommendations they contain," Ambassador Lenarcic mentioned while speaking at the US Helsinki Commission testimony.

This year, the ODIHR has already deployed election observation activities to ten participating States (Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Albania and Mongolia). 

However, there are some concerns that an invitation from Azerbaijan for the international monitoring teams to observe the upcoming presidential election still hasn't arrived in Vienna, while the October 16 election is looming.  

Addressing formally a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna last week, Azeri foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov stated his country's intention to the monitors, in line with OSCE commitments. 

In the meantime, Baku has been asking for the mandate of the office to be changed, in practice reducing its role to that of a technical office. In response to Azerbaijan, the EU and the US publicly expressed their concern pointing at a number of developments in the domestic political situation in Azerbaijan that not only challenge the implementation of its OSCE commitments but also have an impact on bilateral relations. "The 2013 Presidential elections will be important for Azerbaijan's democratic development. Azerbaijan should be able to conduct free, fair and transparent elections, in accordance with international standards, where opposition candidates are given a real platform to present their views and programs and can compete on an equal footing. We look forward to a timely and unrestricted invitation to OSCE/ODIHR and other international observers to monitor the elections, including the period of the pre-election campaign", the EU statement added. In his part, the US Ambassador John Kelly also stated that his country looks forward to Azerbaijan's invitation to the OSCE to deploy a full observation mission, "an unrestricted invitation to observe the upcoming presidential election on October 16."

In Washington DC, the leadership of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the US Helsinki Commission, worry about some OSCE members' attitude towards  the ODIHR and their interference into its monitoring groups."We fully support ODIHR's activities especially in terms of election monitoring and defending human rights in its region:" Helsinki Commission Chairman in Europe Senator Benjamin Cardin said.

Meanwhile, for ODIRH's director Ambassador Lenarcic, the environment for rights defenders to operate freely in some OSCE participating countries "has become more, not less, restricted." The space for free expression of these fundamental rights is also shrinking in some states, as a result of restrictive legislation and practices, including increased scrutiny and monitoring of civil society activity.  

Another troubling development is the tendency to "brand" legitimate exercises of freedom of peaceful assembly and association as the work of "extremists" or "foreign agents".  The ODIHR is now launching a joint activity with the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe to develop guidelines on freedom of association, which will be designed to assist states in implementing their important commitments in this area and to complement our existing Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly.