Domestic

Domestic

MP: Azerbaijan likely to see another biased attitude of OSCE/ODIHR towards upcoming presidential election

09 March 2018 14:45 (UTC +04:00)

Unfortunately, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) are known for its tendentious and biased approaches to elections held in Azerbaijan so far, Elman Nasiro, MP, director of the Institute of Political Studies of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Azerbaijan, told APA.

The MP said there is no denying that Azerbaijan is a country that has experienced a phase of democratic development.

“Another truth is that democracy itself is a process with no final point. Whichever state claims to have reached a peak of democracy has lied. Democracy is a process and Azerbaijan is the most active participant of this process,” he said.

Nasirov pointed out that Azerbaijan is implementing very serious reforms in the direction of democratic development.

“From this point of view, the presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections held in our country are important political events and are regarded by the international community as serious steps towards Azerbaijan’s democratic development. The position of the international community in the 2013 presidential election was that by holding these elections Azerbaijan took the next step towards democracy. With this in mind, it is already possible to say that the presidential election to be held in Azerbaijan on April 11, 2018 will be a new event and a new step forward in the direction of democratic development. This approach has been stated in the final opinion of many international organizations. However, we have witnessed other approaches,” he said.

According to the lawmaker, in many cases information indicates that the biased and non-objective reports of the OSCE/ODIHR are already prepared even before the election.

"It is left only to declare these biased reports after the elections. We would like the ODIHR to give up this unpleasant tradition and to demonstrate an objective and unbiased attitude towards the upcoming presidential election in Azerbaijan. This is our desire. Unfortunately, facts related to this organization’s activity reveal other points,” said the MP, stressing that it is not ruled out that Azerbaijan will witness another biased attitude of the ODIHR towards the April 11 presidential election.

He went on to say: “I hope that this organization will abandon its groundless attitude towards Azerbaijani society and announce changes in Azerbaijan, steps taken in the country towards democracy and achievements gained in the process of building a democratic and legal state. This is what we expect. Unfortunately, in most cases the organization obtains information from unreliable sources and misleads the international community.”