THE CHOICE HAS BEEN MADE

The struggle for 125 seats in the Milli Maclis (Parliament) of Azerbaijan was waged by 690 candidates. Among them were 13 nominees from parties, 5 political blocs and independent candidates.

Even before the elections, opinion polls heralded victory for the ruling New Azerbaijan Party. Three days before the polls, the Ray monitoring centre published the results of a poll, according to which 42.2 per cent of respondents intended to vote for the ruling party. Only 4 per cent of respondents were ready to cast their votes for candidates from other parties and blocs, taken together, including 1.7 per cent for the PFAP-Musavat bloc, 0.9 per cent for the Karabakh bloc, 0.5 per cent for the Islahat bloc and 0.2 per cent for the Democracy bloc. At the same time, 11.9 per cent of respondents said they would support independent candidates in the elections.

But "these figures are not final, since the elections to the Milli Majlis are being held by the first-past-the-post system and voters will focus not only on a candidate's party affiliation, but also his personal qualities," said experts at the Ray centre. It was no coincidence that a third of respondents (31.9 per cent) who had already decided who to vote for, were not aware of what bloc the candidates represented.

"Yea" and "nay"

Either way, voters made their choice. More than 50 per cent of Azerbaijani citizens eligible to vote went to the polls on 7 November 2010. The voting results were no surprise.

As predicted by sociologists, the New Azerbaijan Party retained its advantage in the parliament of the fourth convocation. According to ANS TV estimates, the ruling party will hold 72 mandates, or 57.6 per cent of all seats in the new parliament, which is 5.6 per cent more than in the previous parliament. At the same time, the number of deputies representing other political parties, including the opposition, declined. Although there were previously 20, there are now 12 of them in the parliament of the fourth convocation. What is more, the so-called "radical" opposition did not gain a single seat in the Milli Maclis.

But the number of non-partisan members of parliament increased - independent candidates will take 41 seats against 37 in the third parliament. The number of women members of the Milli Maclis of Azerbaijan also increased. While the third parliament had only 14 representatives of the fair sex, in the latest election, they "knocked" five more men out of their parliamentary seats.

The ruling party's victory was recorded by electronic voting conducted by the Parliament-2010 election monitoring coalition, as well as by an exit poll organized by the ELS Centre for Independent Studies.

Thus, the will of the voter has determined the composition of the legislature for the next five years and made it possible once again to sound out the social and political preferences of society. What are they?

Firstly, in supporting the ruling party, the Azerbaijani voter spoke in favour of political stability in the country. This was acknowledged even by former Azerbaijani president Ayaz Mutallibov, now in opposition, who commented on the election results. "Azerbaijan needs stability, because it does not work otherwise. History shows the consequences of instability. We have a common problem, and everyone should understand this," he added, pointing to the importance of stability for a settlement of Azerbaijan's main problems - the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict.

Secondly, the outcome of the polls was also affected by the level of social welfare. Whereas in 2005 the radical wing of the opposition could take a few seats in parliament by pointing to existing social problems, in 2010 the arguments of the opposition candidates, apparently, did not work - the economic realities were not conducive to anti-government propaganda. No matter how much you want things to be better, the current parameters of the state budget, per capita gross domestic product, the number of new jobs, citizens' incomes and spending and other economic indicators could not but affect the lives and, accordingly, the political views of ordinary people. As shown by statistics and independent studies, earlier people spent most of their income on food, but now they have enough money to afford a holiday abroad, buy a car, furniture, electronics etc. And this is while the social unrest caused by the global crisis continues in the most developed countries of Europe. So now, political stability in Azerbaijan is supplemented by economic stability.

It is no accident that the Ray monitoring centre also asked respondents: "Who would you vote for if presidential elections were held next Sunday?" The results were that 82.2 per cent of voters would give their votes to the incumbent president and chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party, Ilham Aliyev.

According to the poll, President Aliyev also leads in the credibility ratings of government agencies and institutions - 75 per cent of the population trust the president. Compared with December of last year, this figure has remained virtually unchanged.

Thirdly, as shown by the same Ray poll, in contrast to other political blocs, the ruling party was able to draw voters' attention to its candidates. In any case, about 47 per cent of respondents were generally familiar with the list of candidates from New Azerbaijan, while only 6 per cent of respondents were familiar with the PFAP-Musavat list, and the situation in other blocs was even worse.

This is despite the fact that all candidates were given the same amount of free airtime for the election campaign. They were all able to communicate with voters on the ground and present their platforms in the press and on the Internet.

The poll also revealed that voters had little interest in the composition of political blocs: 67.2 per cent of respondents did not know which parties were included in the bloc for which they were going to vote. This is hardly surprising, given the fact that almost 60 per cent of respondents are not interested in politics.

Controversial estimates

Meanwhile, much clamour was raised by some preliminary reports from international observers who monitored the parliamentary elections. Contradictions in their statements forced the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry to intervene in the situation. According to Interfax-Azerbaijan, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov discussed the election with the director of the OSCE Office for Human Rights and Democratic Institutions (OSCE/ODIHR), Janes Lenarcic.

Mammadyarov said that the joint statement by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the OSCE Office for Human Rights and Democratic Institutions on the results of the elections reflected some conflicting opinions. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry brought Lenarcic's attention to an elementary discrepancy in the same statement: in one case, voting at 90 per cent of polling stations is described as positive, while in another, the statement says that there were serious violations on election day.

The US State Department statement was met with "surprise and disappointment" in Azerbaijan. The Trend news agency quoted the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan as saying that the State Department announced that the 7 November "parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan were not conducted in accordance with international standards". Moreover, it quotes the conclusions made by the observation missions of the OSCE/ODIHR, PACE, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and European Parliament. However, the document referred to by the authors of the statement contains no statement like the one given by the State Department, according to a press release by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

The Foreign Ministry stresses that the information disseminated by international organizations, along with some shortcomings, highlights that the elections took place peacefully, were accompanied by debates and characterized by the participation of all opposition parties, and that the monitoring mission commended the voting process at 90 per cent of polling stations. This suggests that the elections generally won the trust of the population.

At the same time, the government of Azerbaijan feels duty-bound to point out that the holding of democratic, fair and transparent elections is the state's main goal and, along with estimating the positive work undertaken in this direction, the CEC and relevant government agencies are investigating seriously some of the shortcomings that were observed in the electoral process and will take any measures necessary, according to a press release.

It should be noted that the CEC has already begun an investigation into irregularities in the electoral process. As our magazine went to press, the commission had invalidated the results from three polling stations. According to the requirements of the Electoral Code of Azerbaijan, the protocols of district election commissions will be reviewed within 20 days after the election and submitted to the Constitutional Court.

Meanwhile, the observation mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking countries assessed the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan as democratic. They were consistent with international norms and standards, the head of the Turkey-Azerbaijan parliamentary friendship group, Mustafa Kabakci, said at a press conference.

The Azerbaijani authorities created equal conditions for all candidates, which contributed to democratic elections, he said.

Kabakci also noted some minor violations that the mission faced in the process of observation, however, he said, "they were promptly removed and could not influence the democratic nature of the elections".

The CIS observation mission also praised the changes in Azerbaijan's electoral legislation and the transparency of the parliamentary elections.

"The inclusion of observers from opposition candidates, who were present during the vote counting, shows the democratization of the electoral process," said the head of the mission, Sergey Lebedev.

Azerbaijani citizens had a genuine opportunity to choose deputies from five to eight candidates, he said. "Of course, there were some technical violations, but at the 3,000 polling stations visited by observers yesterday, such violations were minimal," says Lebedev. Moreover, he said, most evaluations by observers from the CIS coincide with the reports of their Western counterparts.

The same assessment of the voting was made by the mission of GUAM observers, who called the elections free and fair. "The parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan were organized and conducted in accordance with international obligations and standards of democratic elections, including the obligations and standards of the OSCE and Council of Europe, as well as national legislation and regulations and procedures developed by the CEC of Azerbaijan," said Valeriy Chechelashvili, head of the GUAM mission and secretary general of the organization, to the Trend news agency.

One way or another, the voter had the last say. But the mood in Azerbaijani society shows that the voter is not going to challenge the election results.