Azerbaijani authorities find Western criticism of elections ungrounded

The official Baku believes that the statements of US and EU officials that the November 7 parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan failed to meet international standards, suffer from real grounds, since the elections, according to the country's leadership, took place in democratic environment.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 8 Philip Crowley, spokesman of the US Department of State, said that the elections in Azerbaijan "failed to meet international standards." On that very day, a joint statement of the international observation missions of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, PACE and European Parliament also noted lack of any essential progress in democratic development of the country.

On November 9, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov received Janes Lenarcic, Director of the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR), and told him that the above joint statement on the election outcomes "had reflected some controversial opinions."

The controversy, according to the head of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) was expressed "in the presence in one and the same statement of the opinion that on the election day the voting was positively assessed in 90 percent of polling stations, along with the controversial opinion about serious violations on the election day," the IA "Trend" News Agency reports.

Meanwhile, the members of the mobile monitoring group of the Network of Human Rights Houses have also stated numerous violations and falsification cases during the November 7 parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.

According to observers, during the pre-election campaign the government of Azerbaijan introduced a "discriminatory restrictions" on holding rallies and demonstrations. In addition, the absence of the freedom of speech and public debates resulted in unequal access of candidates to the presidential campaign, says the observers' statement.

The very process of voting on November 7, according to the monitoring group, was not free. Cases of falsification in favour of pro-governmental candidates were registered, while pressure of the authorities on observers caused special concern of the Human Rights House.

Mazakhir Panakhov, head of the CEC (Central Election Commission), said that no serious violations were recorded during the elections, although on November 8 the CEC declared the voting results at three polling stations in three constituencies null and void. Cancellation of the election results at these stations did not influence the election totals in these constituencies as a whole.