CEM&TD: Azerbaijan has no conditions for democratic elections

The Centre of Monitoring of Elections and Training in Democracy (CEM&TD) has promulgated its progress report on monitoring outcomes of the stage of candidates' nomination and registration during the campaign of municipal elections in Azerbaijan appointed on December 23. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that the monitoring outcomes were presented at the press conference on November 26 at the Baku Media Centre.

"The monitoring results give us grounds to state the absence of normal conditions for free and democratic municipal elections. Thus, since the start of the campaign, the country saw no improvement of the situation with the freedoms of assembly, speech and press. Moreover, political freedoms of citizens are even more suppressed," said Bashir Suleimanly, Director of the CEM&TD.

As compared with the previous municipal elections of 2004, the political activity in the country "has considerably gone down", as the expert has added.

Mr Suleimanly named the pressure exerted by executive officials on the activists of the opposition parties, who had expressed their intention to participate in the elections, among typical violations.

Besides, as he added, the practice of rejecting registration of candidates was also widespread.

Basir Suleimanly also said that Central Electoral Commission (CEC) in many cases refused to consider complaints.

Activists of the opposition also state mass violations during the election campaign.

However, the Azerbaijani CEC rejects the criticism in connection with violations of the law in the course of the election campaign. Natik Mamedov, the CEC's Secretary, said on November 24 that "just a handful of complaints had arrived to the CEC; however, they were not confirmed during the investigation."