Azerbaijan is now on the center of attention of international community for the Parliamentary Elections to be held on 6 November. The country authority has received the abundance of recommendations and statements from the international community, encouraging the government to exercise the conditions for the conduct of free and democratic elections in the country. However, despite of certain steps for improvement of the situation, the Azerbaijani reality on the democratic elections leaves much to be desired (05-NOV-2005). 

Concerns of International Organizations
The pre-election situation in Azerbaijan with violation of basic human rights and freedoms as well as international standards for fair elections causes a great concern of international organizations, watching closely the process.

Having called the Azerbaijani authority to prove their commitment to free and fair lections, ARTICLE 19 stated that “the Azerbaijani authorities are in direct violation of their international obligations, with the failure to enforce the rights of the media to report freely and without fear of intimidation”.

Human Rights Watch considers that the late introduction of the executive order on October 25, makes at least one of its provisions entirely meaningless: the decision to lift the ban on observers from NGOs with foreign funding came after the deadline for registering observers expired on October 27. The executive order’s late introduction also puts the effective implementation of the other measures in doubt. For example, international election experts told Human Rights Watch that the use of invisible ink to avoid multiple voting can only work effectively if officials are properly trained and the necessary equipment is available to detect the ink. The time left before the elections is clearly too short to conduct such training, even if the authorities manage to import the required equipment.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Ukraine expresses deep concern with tense situation in Azerbaijan on the eve of parliamentary elections scheduled for November 6. The application by CDU was adopted on the basis statement and estimation of the remedial organization Human Rights Watch, EU, CE and Venice commission which sharply criticized the authorities of Azerbaijan for anti-democratic pre-election situation in the country on the eve of parliamentary elections. The CDU of Ukraine appeals to all its allies in Ukraine, Europe and in the world with request “to consolidate efforts for providing urgent and effective political support to the people of Azerbaijan”. “Expressing concern with the situation in Azerbaijan, the CDU of Ukraine appeals to the authorities of Azerbaijan with request to provide fulfillment of obligations on following human rights, freedom of speech and assembly, conduction of fair and free elections bin accordance with the international standards,” the statements reads.

Agitation of Authorities in Favor of the Candidates from Ruling Party
The 11 May decree of the president on prevention of authorities to get engaged in the pre-election campaign failed at the implementation stage. Throughout the election campaign there was received information about the violation of this decree. For example, three candidates for parliament of Nakhichevan (Fahri Gasimzade, Alesker Suleymanov and Fahraddin Salimov) appealed to court against the Minister of Social Care of the autonomous republic, who agitated the population in favor of candidates from the ruling party “Yeni Azerbaijan” on the 25 October in Sadarak. At the same time, the Minister stated about the necessity to “drive out” from Nakhichevan the opposition members and threatened those who would vote for them.
Besides, the Head of the Education Department of Sadarak region Sultan Rzayev was agitating in favor of the current Head of Parliament of Nakhichevan of Autonomous Republic (NAR) Vasif Talibov who had been balloting for parliament from the 1st Sadarak constituency. S.Rzayev held a session in school N1 during which he ordered the teachers to vote for Talibov; he threatened to dismiss the teachers, who would no obey.

Failed Freedom of Assembly
On 4 November the opposition bloc Azadlig (Freedom) planned to hold a concert rally for its supporters in the square in front of Narimanov cinema. However, the authorities did not give permission for this action. Before the election bloc planned to hold this action in the central republican stadium, and after that the authorities announced about non-planned football match on that day. The Bloc representative believes that the instruction of the president of October 25 on creation in the country of democratic pre-election situation and all necessary conditions for candidates is a “fiction in order to put on a false front the international organizations”.
On the same day the ruling party “Yeni Azerbaijan” held a big rally on Galaba cinema. According to the information received from the students of Baku State University and the Institute of Foreign Languages, the students were urged to attend the rally of the ruling party by the university administration with the threat to have problems during examination in case they do not attend the rally.

Attack on the Headquarters of Rasul Guliyev
On the 3-rd of November 15 employees of the Department for Fight against Organized Criminality of the Ministry of Interior arrived to the pre-election headquarters of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party and attacked it. They arrested the head of the headquarters Faramaz Javadov and the correspondent of “Yeni Sabah” newspaper Kenan Rahimov. Sardar Jalaloglu told to the representative of Human Rights House that “the office had been damaged and all documents concerning pre-election campaign of Rasul Guliyev were withdrawn”. The correspondent of “Yeni Sabah” was released a few hours later, but Faramaz Javadov has still been in the Department and there is no news about his fate.

As to the return of the leader of ADP Rasul Guliyev, who made the unsuccessful attempt to return on the 17-th of October to Azerbaijan after 9 years of emigration, it was stated that R.Guliyev would return on the 1-2 of November, before elections.

However, commenting on his absence the deputy chairman of ADP Sardar Jalaloglu said that “the question on Guliyev’s return depends only on him, as the authorities are going to eliminate him physically”. “As for me I would not undertake such responsibility. He is ready to be brought to justice, however, there are no guarantees on his safety” added S.Jalaloglu.

Police detained the head of election headquarters of PFPA
Gabil Mamedrzayev, the head of the pre-election headquarters of the leader of PFPA Ali Kerimli was detained by police on 4 November at 20:00. The detained was taken to the 8-th branch of police of Sabail region of Baku and was kept there for two hours. At the same time, search was made in his car. According to Mamedrzayev, he was detained in the election headquarters in the Guneshly settlement. “The policemen did not explain the reasons of detain,” Mamedrzayev told.

Censorship for Life Broadcast on TV from Baku
According to Turan Information Agency, none of international TV channels which arrived in Baku for covering upcoming parliamentary elections can broadcast live from Azerbaijan. The reason is unwillingness of authorities to provide them with necessary technical capacity. Besides, satellites of the TV channels NTV and RTR were detained. Three weeks ago a bus with satellite equipment of the Turkish agency IHLAS managed to “steal” to Azerbaijan. However, the authorities did not allow them to work and demanded to leave the country.

Commenting on these events, the Head of the national Board for TV and Radio (NBTR) Nushiravan Maharramli stated that the order of broadcasting from Azerbaijan must “be determined” by the authorities of Azerbaijan. “The mechanism of this procedure has not been determined yet, and there are not relevant norms. Prices for such services have not been established, there is not control over the broadcast information. Taking in into consideration, the NBTR cannot give permission for live broadcast,” he said.

The Director of the Institute for the rights of media Rashid Hacili expressed surprise with the statement of the board for TV “The Board deals only with internal problems and cannot interfere the activity of TV companies, even if they work in Azerbaijan. Therefore, the actions of this organization are absolutely ungrounded,” Hacili said.

It is noteworthy that none company had ever any problems for broadcasting in Azerbaijan. The talk is about large foreign TV companies which arrived in Baku for coverage of parliamentary elections on November 6.The restrictions noted by Maharramly concern only these channels. It means that international community will not be able to watch on air the events taking place in Azerbaijan soon. And at the same time same time the authorities of the country will be able to limit broadcast materials. At present the TV channels have to broadcast via “Mir” TV channel, what limits the opportunity of TV journalists. Thus, on the eve of elections the authorities do their best for limitation of broadcasting of unwilled materials.

Irena Lasota was Refused Visa
Irena Lasota, the president of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe (IDEE), based in Washington, was refused on October 31, 2005 an entry visa by the Azerbaijan government. In 2003 Lasota headed a group of 188 IDEE presidential election observers supported by the U.S. Department of State which issued a Votum Separatum from the OSCE Observers’ Mission concluding that: “The elections, if called as such, were conducted with major violations of the laws of the Republic of Azerbaijan not to mention the gross violation of international standards. In this situation, since none of the criteria for evaluating an electoral process were met, the observers of IDEE’s mission conclude that the presidential elections of October 15, 2003 in the Republic of Azerbaijan cannot be qualified as what in the practice of civilized nations is called “elections.”

The denial of the Azeri visa to Irena Lasota, a known human rights activist and journalist is a relatively small but very significant indication that the Azeri government is not planning to hold free, transparent and fair elections. IDEE, based in Washington DC, but with extensive contacts in over 20 countries, has organized many international seminar and workshops in Azerbaijan, bringing members of Parliament, journalists and democracy supporters.