OSCE raises concerns over fairness of Azerbaijan election

OSCE raises concerns over fairness of Azerbaijan election

By Nailia Bagirova

Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said on Thursday they had "serious questions" about Azerbaijan's presidential election which veteran leader Ilham Aliyev won with a landslide.

Azerbaijan's election commission said Aliyev, in power since 2003, had received 92.05% in Wednesday's vote, with over 93% of ballots counted, state media reported.

The OSCE in a statement cited "indications of ballot box stuffing" and a lack of safeguards against multiple voting.

"This raised serious questions about whether ballots were counted and reported honestly," it said.

"While preparations for the election were efficient and professional, it lacked genuine pluralism and critical voices were continuously stifled," the OSCE added.

Rejecting the criticism, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Aliyev, told Reuters the election was "free, democratic and fully reflected the will of (the) Azerbaijani people".

He said the OSCE was not the only body qualified to judge the integrity of elections, alluding to other observers from countries including Belarus and Kazakhstan. He added that some of the OSCE's findings were not "objective and true".

Aliyev, who took over as president of the hydrocarbon-rich South Caucasus nation in 2003 from his father Heydar, routinely receives over 85% of the vote in elections that rights groups say are neither free nor fair, an allegation officials reject.

Azerbaijan had not been due to hold a presidential election until 2025, but Aliyev brought the date forward after Baku took back control of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenians in a lightning offensive last September.

CRACKDOWN

A string of Azerbaijani journalists have been jailed since late November in what media groups said was a crackdown on reporting of corruption.

The OSCE said none of the six candidates who ran against Aliyev had seriously tried to challenge his policies.

The runner-up in Wednesday's election, a lawmaker who is loyal to Aliyev, received just over 2%, while the two main opposition parties boycotted the election.

A string of world leaders, including Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Aliyev on his victory. Baku is closely allied with Ankara and maintains a strong working relationship with its former colonial ruler, Russia.

Baku has rejected Western criticism of its rights record as prejudice against its largely Muslim population. Azeri energy resources are central to European plans to reduce dependency on Russian gas following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Aliyev and his family cast their ballots on Wednesday in Karabakh's now almost entirely depopulated capital, which Azerbaijanis call Khankendi, and Armenians refer to as Stepanakert.

Karabakh, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, had been home to around 120,000 ethnic Armenians who enjoyed de facto independence from Baku following a lengthy war in the early 1990s. Almost all of them fled last autumn after Azerbaijani forces retook the mountainous region.

For Azerbaijan, the victory was a triumph that heralded what Aliyev called "a new era" for his country. For neighbouring Armenia, the defeat was a national tragedy and for the displaced refugees a humanitarian disaster.