THE STRONGEST WILL WIN

Azerbaijan is actively getting ready to hold elections to the parliament of the fifth convocation, which are to be held next Sunday. According the Central Electoral Commission's data, the more than 750 candidates vying for the 125 seats in the parliament, are continuing to conduct their election campaigns. Within the framework of the election campaign 45 publications have offered candidates platforms on which to inform the public of their election programmes and for would-be members of parliament standing for 226 seats in different regions of the country to meet the voters.

Four organisations - the "REY" monitoring centre, the "ELS" independent research centre, the Centre of Azerbaijani Youth Rights Protection and the Citizens' Labour Rights Protection League are to conduct an exit poll on election day, asking voters who they voted for as they come out of the polling stations.

Just as in the elections of past years, great attention is being paid to ensure the voting process is transparent. On that day it will be possible to constantly monitor what is going on at 1,000 polling stations (approximately 20 per cent of the total number), using web-cameras which have been set up throughout the country. On Election Day Internet users, both at home and abroad, will be able to access the Central Electoral Commission's web page, without any kind of registration and constantly observe the voting process, the vote count and determination of the results certified by the commissions.

A large number of observers have registered to monitor the voting process and the vote count. In particular, 465 foreign observers have registered with the Central Electoral Commission, citizens from 53 countries representing 36 international organisations, as well as 57,600 local observers. Of these 2,414 have officially registered with the Central Electoral Commission, which means that they have the right to monitor the election process not only within a specific district, but throughout the territory of the republic.

Sadly, it has already to become customary for some political associations representing the so-called radical opposition to decide to ignore the upcoming elections. But this has not prevented the forthcoming elections from being unprecedented in Azerbaijan's history in the extent of the political activity:

Candidates from 15 political parties and the Azadlyq-2015 bloc have been registered by the Central Electoral Commission, but if we take into account the independents, then representatives of 24 political parties, the overwhelming majority opposition parties, are taking part. This is an unprecedented number in Azerbaijani history. Of course, the ruling New Azerbaijan Party has the largest number of candidates. Nevertheless, this does not make the competition for the seats in parliament any less keen if you take into account the fact that some of Azerbaijan's veteran old guard legislators have decided not to  stand for parliament this time and to make way for the younger generation.

Besides this, not only have representatives of some local opposition political parties decided to boycott the elections, but also a number of international organisations. Although they were invited, such organisations as the OSCE [Organisation for Security and Coope-ration in Europe] ODIHR [Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights], the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament have decided not to send their observers for the first time in many years. It was however Azerbaijan's affair to invite them. Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry blamed the ODIHR for politicising the elections, whereas it is an organisation that does not have a mandate to take such a blatantly political decision like boycotting the monitoring of elections in the republic.

"It is not Azerbaijan that is refusing to cooperate. It is the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly that is refusing to monitor the elections. Therefore the call to renew collaboration should not be addressed to us, but to the representatives of the Assembly who are refusing to cooperate. We are holding the elections whether the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the European Parliament and other structures, turn down our invitation or not," Azerbaijan's representative at the OSCE commented on this situation.

 The manoeuvre by these organisations has not only been condemned by Baku, The chairman of Russia's Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, thinks the decision of the OSCE ODIHR leadership not to send observers to the elections in Azerbaijan is unlawful. "With the arrival of the new ODIHR director, Mr. Georg Link, relations between a number of states and this institution have deteriorated. In violation of all norms and all laws, Mr. Link took the decision in an unauthorized manner to cancel the trip by the ODIHR mission and assisted in getting the trips to Azerbaijan by other observation delegations cancelled. I think that this incident will have a serious effect on relations between a number of countries and the ODIHR," the chairman of Russia's Central Election Commission said. 

Not only Azerbaijan, but many other countries have long accused this structure of fundamental bias, i.e. a critical attitude in making an assessment of the electoral process on the territory of the former Soviet Union. The absence of ODIHR representatives does thereby means that the elections to the Milli Majlis will be quieter, since some forces regard each election to be the reason for destabilising the situation in the country and criticism of the electoral process is perceived as a call to action.

Against this backdrop, CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries are scheduled to be extensively represented at the elections, with approximately 500 people attending, and here too there is a hint of the recent tendencies for a rapprochement between Azerbaijan and its traditional partners in other nearby countries. Unfortunately, the contemporary processes in international relations are increasingly beginning to look like "playground" games in which there is the following rule: "If you are friends with those who I am not friends with, it means you mustn't touch my cars anymore," Aleksey Bychkov, the head of the CIS countries' department at the Russian Institute of Political Studies, believes.

"Like many states from the former Soviet Union, Azerbaijan is not being drawn into these "playground" squabbles because it wants to be. The so-called democratic institutions only take democracy to those countries that independently mount the scaffold, to those states or leaders of states who have the will and their own vision, and are not subject to outside pressure, who don't let themselves get into the "playground" and end up with more compliant governments but which are sometimes reduced to chaos. Azerbaijan is an example of determination and the fact that it does not grovel does of course irritate certain forces," the Russian expert supposes.

But the refusal of the ODIHR and other structures that have refused to come to the elections in Azerbaijan is by no means a guarantee that later on they will not publish the same kind of critical reports as before, compiled by some kind of "competent experts" on the spot. But Azerbaijan does not pay any particular attention to such groundless criticism. An analysis of the election situation, of those participating in the election race and many other factors allows the possibility of any kind of excesses to be ruled out at the upcoming elections.

Most of the inhabitants of Azerbaijan are happy with their life, according data from a public opinion poll conducted by Opinionway, a French company for sociological research, on the threshold of the elections. Thus, 58.1 per cent of the respondents taking part in the poll think that things are going the right way in Azerbaijan. The surveys conducted by the American Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates Centre are even more convincing: approximately 80 per cent of the electorate approves of the course of development being pursued by the country's leadership today.

In all probability, the elections on 1 November will go down in history as the quietest in all respects in the republic's contemporary history. But knowledgeable foreign observers are yet again reminded of a specific local phenomenon, for example, an interesting fact like the presence in a small republic of 564 voters (0.01 per cent of the total electorate) who are more than 100 years old…