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The answer National Council gave to OSCE with its protest action - ANALYSIS

The answer National Council gave to OSCE with its protest action - <span style="color: red;">ANALYSIS

12 October 2013 18:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vugar Masimoglu - APA - ANALYTICS. There is only 60-hour distance between the end of the presidential elections and the protest action of the National Council of the Democratic Forces. The questions regarding the elections arose within these 60 hours and the answers were found within 60 hours. Today's protest of the opposition has been the best answer to the accusations regarding the results. According to the official statement of the police, the protest rally was attended by 1500 people. The opposition claims that the protest action was attended by thousands of people, but does not reveal the exact number.

The fact that the opposition's protest is not attended by masses, actually means that even this front de-facto recognizes the results of the elections. From now on statements, accusations will not have any political weight. Not only the statements of the opposition, but also the statements and reports of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Because there is illogicality.

The first illogicality. CEC has stated that they have not received any complaint over serious shortcomings in the elections that may have an impact on the results. Neither the election headquarters of the candidates, nor the international observation missions have appealed to CEC regarding the shortcomings. Even the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which claims that there were irregularities during the voting, has not submitted to the CEC a complaint, or a video material proving these claims. No organization gave information at the press conference about the concrete complaints. Video material should be especially underlined, because at the time when information technologies have developed so much, everyone has a telephone, tablet etc. to record. So, it is surprising that the side raising claims do not have such materials.

The second point. The fact that the protest action of the National Council of the Democratic Forces was attended by few citizens, has given answer to a number of questions. If serious shortcomings had occurred during the elections, the rights of the National Council's candidate had been violated, the protest action at Mehsul stadium would have been attended by tens of thousands, not by hundreds of people. The fact that the protest action was attended by few people can not be grounded with unfavorable weather, violation of the freedom of assembly, obstacles created by the executive authorities or remoteness of the venue. Baku Mayor's Office immediately replied to the appeal for holding the protest action, gave permission to the National Council to hold the protest in the center of the city, 100 meters far from the metro station. Then why did few peope join the authorized protest action held only 60 hours after the results of the elections were announced? This question is not put to the citizens, but to the OSCE ODIHR short-term mission that claims that mass shortcomings were observed in the elections. The citizens, who used their voting right to make their choice, know the answer to this question. There is no need to mention the opposition's electorate problem, the mistakes made while determining election strategy, failure to choose proper single candidate and other factors.

If the voters' rights were massively violated in the elections, why don't the citizens join the protest action to defend their rights? The logic says that if massive irregularities had occurred in the elections, today's protest would have been attended by a lot of people. 60 hours is too little time "to forget election rigging".
It should be underlined that all international organizations, including OSCE long-term observation mission say voter turnout was high in the elections. Even the report notes that voter turnout is higher in Azerbaijan than that in other European countries. The Azerbaijani voters are very much interested in determining their future and fully realize their responsibility in this process. This is said in the report of the OSCE missions on elections.

Condition

If the voters are coming to the elections massively;

If the they vote for the the candidate they want;

If the protest rally, held immediately after the elections, is attended by the citizens as many as the voters registered at 2 polling stations;

Conclusion:

So, the claims that there were massive election fraud and shortcomings that can affect the results are preconceived and wrong.

Simple logic cannot put forward any argument to prove the contrary. Since, the international organizations themselves stressed that “voter turnout was high and it shows that the voters were interested in the results of the elections”. No international observation mission, including OSCE/ODHR, opposed the results released by the CEC on the voter turnout, on the contrary they confirmed it. And, today “the voter whose vote is claimed to have been rigged” has not come to “the authorized rally”. And they did not come although there was no fear to be involved in an incident with police or to be arrested. A question arises: where are “the hundreds of thousands of people, whose votes were rigged”? The answer is not what is seen in the square.

So, there is a conclusion on the table: the citizen considers his vote has reached the right address!
Actually, the protest rally held by the National Council has become the final stop of the presidential elections 2013. The only political importance of the protest rally of the opposition was that it has responded to all the possible questions arisen after the elections. At the same time, with today's rally the opposition demonstrated pure reality to OSCE/ODIHR, which released a statement on the elections only 60 hours ago...