Domestic

Domestic

Venice Commission and International Foundation for Election Systems hold roundtable on amending Electoral Code in Baku

09 November 2007 10:53 (UTC +04:00)

Representatives of CEâ€™s Venice Commission, Presidentâ€™s Office, Central Election Commission and political parties attended the debates.
Ali Hasanov, head of the Socio-Political Department of the Office to the President of Azerbaijan stated that he held several elections since Azerbaijan gained independence and all elections were based on integration into Europe. He noted that they made serious debates on mistakes made during elections every time and they tried to eliminate disturbances.
â€œGiven proposals are important for authority to serve for the holding of democratic and fair elections. We are ready to accept such proposals every time. If separate political parties depend on given proposals we will not agree with that. I hope that proposals will serve for independent establishment of election institutions, their responsibility before the law and fulfilling of recommendation of any parties. â€Mr. Hasanov stated that parties should themselves determine what formula will allow people to optimally realize their rights to elect and to be elected. He stressed that the process that has begun since 1998 in the direction of politicizing election institutions is not satisfactory.
â€œThis is our position and the experience of countries holding elections in modern world proves that we are right. Election institutions should be civil and legal institutions. The will of these institutions should consist of laws and realization of peopleâ€™s rights to elect and to be elected. Unfortunately, we have been politicizing these institutions since 1998 and isolated these bodies from professionalism, legal responsibility. This causes disloyalty of both candidate and others. International organizations also have fault here. They supported opinions on politicizing election institutions in Azerbaijan rather than offering model of leading elections institutions to us. And it dropped us into marsh of 2000. We formed commissions on the proposal of Council of Europe and OSCE Human Rights Bureau that year. But several parties stated that they do not allow their representatives to CEC and election schedule was disturbed with it. CE was appealed again that time, and they also appealed to parties in their turn, this issue was debated in the Parliament for eliminating violation of elections and artificial parity was eliminated. Presented models and proposals serve to the formation of commissions irrespective of political forcesâ€™ will today. We are ready to adopt proposal which will be given. But we can only do it if there will not be artificial efforts for defining whether the Party is leading or not.
CE Secretary Generalâ€™s Special Representative to Azerbaijan Denis Bribosia said that Azerbaijan took several commitments vis-Ã -vis Council of Europe. He stressed that those recommendations were taken into consideration in 2003 and 2005 elections.
â€œBut several recommendations were not taken into account rightly. These were recommendations related to election commissions. We had to meet again due to that issue today. Elections Commissions should be formed so that all sides participating in the elections can have confidence in these commissions,â€ he said.
IFES Azerbaijan Chief of Party Dan Blessington stated that he believes that general proposal will be adopted as a result of debates. He found necessary preparation of proposals till Azerbaijani Parliament makes changes and amendments to Electoral Code.
After keynote speech the debates were continued without participation of the journalists. ADP, APFP, ALP and Musavat Party did not attend the debates. /APA/