Azerbaijan confirms election results, and dissatisfied candidates plan to complain to the ECHR
The constitutional court of Azerbaijan confirmed the results of the parliamentary elections held on February 9 in the 121st district. Repeat elections will be held in the remaining 4 districts, but even so, the leading party New Azerbaijan once again holds the majority of the spots in parliament. Protests organized by members of the opposition and independent candidates yielded no results.
Local observers and international organizations say that the parliamentary elections were undemocratic, with many irregularities and fraud.
“Despite the large number of candidates, there was no genuine choice or competition in the Azerbaijan elections,” reports the OSCE.
No opposition members were elected into parliament except for Erkin Gadirli from the Republican Alternative Party.
The opposition and independent candidates refused to recognize the election results and staged several protests, but they were disbanded by the police. Another protest took place today in front of the Constitutional Court.
“We were unable to protect the rights and votes of our electorate from vote thieves within our own country. Forgive us,” wrote one of the independent candidates, former political prisoner Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, on his page.
Earlier, he announced that if justice could not be achieved in Azerbaijan, they would complain to the European Court of Human Rights.
• Everything about parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan in one minute
• OSCE, other int’l orgs call parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan ‘undemocratic’
