As Azerbaijanis started voting in a snap presidential election, stories trickled in of alleged abuses, all of them very acquainted to the worldwide displays who had come to observe the vote.
RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service collected stories of alleged irregularities within the February 7 ballot, together with so-called carousel voting, the place people are transported to a number of polling stations to vote greater than as soon as; defective markings with indelible ink supposed to forestall repeat voting; poll tampering; and a number of voters gathering in a single sales space to solid ballots.
President Ilham Aliyev referred to as the February 7 election two months in the past, saying that Azerbaijan’s lighting navy offensive in September 2023 to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh had ushered in a ”new period” and needs to be marked by new polls. The vast majority of the nation’s reliable opposition selected to boycott the vote.
RFE/RL additionally reported complaints from residents in Azerbaijan’s central district of Imishli that staff of kindergartens and secondary colleges had been being ordered to come back to work regardless that February 7 is a public vacation. Residents mentioned that the employees photographed themselves in a gaggle after which despatched these photographs to the schooling division election officers. They had been then despatched to polling stations in small teams, Imishli residents advised RFE/RL.
A consultant of the Imishli district govt authority, Muhammad Ismayilov, denied the accusation, saying he had ”not set foot” in a neighborhood polling station and had ”voted with…members of the family within the morning at precinct No. 40 within the village of Garadonlu.”
”They advised my youngsters should you do not go [to vote], do not come to work,” one 80-year-old voter from the capital, Baku, mentioned.
With polls now closed, President Aliyev is on monitor to win a fifth consecutive election victory.
Worldwide displays from the Group for Safety and Cooperation In Europe (OSCE) additionally pointed to the alleged obstruction of an impartial observer by police and an electoral official.
Javid Nabiyev, an election observer in Baku’s Nasimi-Sabail electoral district, filed a grievance to authorities after he mentioned he was expelled from a polling place with the assistance of police.
Video from one other polling station confirmed electoral staff dealing with ballots that had already been minimize prematurely, in what is taken into account to be a violation. In Azerbaijan, the higher nook of a poll paper needs to be minimize by an electoral official simply earlier than being offered to a voter.
Journalists reported being prevented from filming at one other polling station on the grounds that they weren’t within the media registry, regardless of an assurance from the Central Election Fee that they might ”function freely by presenting their press card.” The fee advised Turan, an Azerbaijani-based impartial information company, that ”misunderstandings” can come up if such a card is offered, and election officers ”do not know who they’re.”
Turan reported that two polling places within the Sabunchu and Binagadi districts of the capital, Baku, noticed the follow of carousel voting, during which busloads of voters journey from one polling station to the subsequent. Talking to Turan, nonetheless, native electoral officers denied the allegations.
Forward of the February 7 presidential vote, the election mission of the OSCE’s Workplace for Democratic Establishments and Human Rights (ODIHR) had warned in its interim report of detentions and arrests; restrictions imposed on media and journalists; and ”the country-wide blocking of some main vital media web sites.”
ODIHR concluded that Azerbaijan’s final nationwide elections — a parliamentary vote in February 2020, during which Aliyev’s ruling New Azerbaijan Social gathering cruised to a straightforward majority — had fallen under the requirements for democratic polls, citing specific shortcomings on election day.
ODIHR discovered a ”statistically excessive” charge of detrimental assessments at noticed polling stations that instructed ”severe procedural shortcomings” in addition to a ”blatant disregard” for safeguards towards manipulations. It additionally cited ”impediments [that] undermined the transparency of election day procedures.”
There’s little doubt that the 62-year-old Aliyev will win. He has gained every of his previous reelections with at the very least 85 p.c of the vote.