Foreign

Home page

Foreign

OSCE/ODIHR Needs Assessment Mission to Azerbaijan releases report on upcoming parliamentary elections

28 July 2010 13:43 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. On 18 June, in accordance with OSCE commitments, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the OSCE invited the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) to observe the 7 November 2010 parliamentary elections.

The OSCE/ODIHR will request the secondment by OSCE participating States of 30 long-term observers to follow the campaign and election preparations throughout the country and 450 short-term observers to observe election day procedures, including voting, counting of votes and tabulation of results. The OSCE/ODIHR may consider the early deployment of experts to follow the process of candidate registration.

The OSCE/ODIHR undertook a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM) to Azerbaijan from 21 to 24 June 2010. The OSCE/ODIHR NAM was composed of Nicolas Kaczorowski, Head of the Election Department, and Jonathan Stonestreet, Senior Election Expert.
The purpose of the OSCE/ODIHR NAM was to assess the conditions and level of
preparation for the upcoming parliamentary elections, and to advise on the deployment
of a possible OSCE/ODIHR election observation activity. The OSCE/ODIHR NAM
held meetings in Baku with representatives of the authorities, election administration,
political parties, media, civil society and the diplomatic community.

â€œAlthough efforts have been made to improve the technical organization of elections,
Azerbaijan continues to face challenges in ameliorating the democratic context of
elections. Freedom of assembly is very limited in practice, as political parties are
routinely denied permission to assemble, particularly in central Baku. Detentions,
defamation lawsuits and other forms of pressure on journalists constrain freedom of the
media in Azerbaijan and create an atmosphere that is not conducive to the free
expression of ideas inherent in a democratic election process.

Significant amendments to the Election Code were made in June 2010 with little public
discussion. The amendments eliminated state financing for candidates and further
shortened the overall election period, including the campaign period, which had already
been halved by amendments made in June 2008. Since the 2005 parliamentary
elections, the time available for the election campaign has thus decreased from 60 days
to 23 days. The official campaign period provides specific rights to candidates and
parties in terms of the ability to conduct meetings and rallies and to appear in mass
media. Given the existing constraints on the exercise of civil and political rights in the
period between elections, the recent changes to the Election Code effectively limit the
ability of candidates and parties to communicate their views to votersâ€.