STATEMENT

of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan
regarding the Statement of OSCE/ODIHR and OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly on Preliminary Findings and Conclusions
 of the Presidential Elections in the Republic of Azerbaijan
 conducted on October 9, 2013

Preliminary report of OSCE/ODIHR on the Presidential elections in the Republic of Azerbaijan conducted on October 9, 2013 is regarded as the insult of Azerbaijan voters’ will and is not accepted by the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The assessment of the Presidential elections in the Republic of Azerbaijan by OSCE/ODIHR on October 10, 2013 seriously differs from the opinion of the other 20 international organizations observing these elections and by releasing such a report, OSCE/ODIHR has isolated itself.

The Central Election Commission carried out wide-scale projects and implemented the activities regularly for the awareness-raising of all the participants of the election process, provided the candidates with equal facilities without exception and the activity of the election commissions was open to domestic and international publicity for free, fair and democratic conduct of the Presidential elections in the Republic of Azerbaijan on October 9, 2013. Web cameras were installed in 1000 polling stations which covered the geography of the republic excluding the occupied territories for providing the internet users with the opportunity of incessant observation on the voting day and nearly 1400 international observers and media representatives, as well as, almost 52000 domestic observers were facilitated to observe the processes from the beginning till the end for ensuring transparency.

The elections were monitored by the representatives of the competent international organizations like Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, European Parliament, OSCE and European Union, parliamentarians of France, Italy, Great Britain, Russia, Turkey and many other countries, the representatives of CIS, The Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic Countries and other European and American organizations joined the elections with hundreds of observers and in the end, they highly assessed these elections and declared that they had not observed any case which could shadow the election results. Protesting the report of the organization represented by him during the press conference on the election results conducted by OSCE/ODIHR, Michel Voisin, head of 280 short-term observers conducting the main observation of OSCE/ODIHR on Election Day, declared that the elections was free, transparent and fair and determined the winner unambiguously.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and European Parliament specially emphasized free, fair and transparent conduct of the Presidential elections in the Republic of Azerbaijan in their statement on the election results issued on October 10, 2013.

But as traditionally, only one organization – OSCE/ODIHR takes a position differing for its unfairness and partiality against the elections conducted in Azerbaijan in general observation atmosphere. The missions’ preliminary report on the observation of the elections was contrary to the opinions of many observers basing on real observations and findings and they continued biased direction in the interim reports which served to distort the reality.

Without taking notice of the serious law violations during elections, as well as, plots against human life in neighbor countries, OSCE/ODIHR is still keeping on fabricating false comments against Azerbaijan.

Even the principle of simple balance was not taken into account during the compile of this report which differs for its efforts of shadowing the process and the cases highly assessed by the previous election missions of OSCE/ODIHR were seriously criticized, in many cases, the assessment of different stages of the election process was not based on any facts or facts and the legislation of the country including the Election Code was openly distorted and assumptions were taken as a basis. Despite the irrefutable facts on these cases had been informed to the mission representatives by CEC many times, they were demonstratively paid no heed.

At the same time, the mission remained indifferent to the problem rooted from the reality of more than one million IDPs in the Republic of Azerbaijan that had passed through many hard processes in the field of protecting international values and more than 20 % of its territory had been under the occupation of Armenia for more than 20 years. Thus, the list of the cases justifying the unfair assessment was expanded.

Though the assessment mission did not feel the need to notice the negative consequences of the activity contrary to its image and mission while compiling this report, even in many cases openly protested by honest representatives of the mission, it could not overwhelm the trust and loyalty of Azerbaijan publicity to international principles and values.

Considering all these, CEC persistently insists on publicizing the opinions of OSCE/ODIHR observation groups on the internet and submitting to CEC, as well, regarding the polling stations where the observation was claimed to have been conducted and informs the organization that relevant measures on the suggestions made now and in future could be undertaken only after this.

The Central Election Commission declares once more that it highly estimates mutual constructive cooperation with international organizations and intends to develop the relations further with the organizations taking the democratic values as a lead in their activity and it has to address to the government of Azerbaijan for re-consideration of the cooperation with OSCE/ODIHR that as a rule, demonstrates biased position.