By Vusala Mahirqizi, General Director of Azeri Press Agency Azerbaijan
A new parliament has been elected in Azerbaijan and, unsurprisingly, the New Azerbaijan Party led by President Ilham Aliyev has won the majority of seats. In new Parliament, 70 seats out of 125 belong to the New Azerbaijan Party.
Meanwhile, several candidates from other parties or independents, elected to new Parliament are loyal to the government. Along with the New Azerbaijan Party, nine parties have won seats in the parliament The Citizen Solidarity Party, proved the most popular among of the nine parties, winning 3 seats.
The opposition parties that have won seats in the new parliament are unlikely to display any aggressive attitude towards the government. The more radical APFP-Musavat electoral bloc, which is associated with personalities who were in office in 1992 and ‘93, failed to win a single seat in the parliament, and lost the four seats that it had held in the previous parliament. Even if all the candidates of the opposition had won in their constituences, they would not have gained the majority in parliament.
The atmosphere around the elections was calm and, remarkably, the first election in the history of Azerbaijan not boycotted by any political party.
The international community and civil society institutions monitored the elections with a total of 47 000 observers, of whom 1084 were international observers and 640 from regional organisations such as delegations of the CIS and the Turkish Parliamentary Assemblies. Of the local observation missions which monitored the elections, several were funded by international organizations.
According to opinions of opposition parties and local and international observers, it is fair to conclude that the election process was normal in 90 percent of the constituencies and infringements were identified in 10 percent of the constituencies. The election commission of Azerbaijan announced that it started investigating protocols sent by the constituencies where breaches of various requirements of the election legislation took place.
The government said the election complaints would be investigated and results would be annulled in the constituencies where infringements were recorded and anyone found in contravention of the law would be prosecuted.
As predicted, the elections didn’t produce any surprise results. International organizations also noted in their preliminary reports that the elections were technically well organized, but that there was no serious public debate and that the population didn’t view the elections as “vital issue”.
For instance, the funerals of two Azerbaijani servicemen who were killed in the line of contact by Armenian Armed Forces as a result of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and whose bodies were repatriated by Armenia two months later, took place on the voting day. While one couldn’t observe crowded polling stations, tens of thousands attended the funerals. Once again, no election or other political process could leave the Nagorno Karabakh conflict behind.
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