Azerbaijan - Elections 2013
President Ilham Aliyev claimed victory in the election 09 October 2013 that overwhelmingly cemented his grip on power in the oil-rich former Soviet nation. Ilham Aliyev was elected for a third term by an overwhelming majority of voters (84.54 percent) for the next five years.
The expected date of next parliamentary election was November 2020. The Azerbaijani constitution provides for a republic with a presidential form of government. Legislative authority was vested in the Milli Mejlis. The president dominated the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.
While there were 50 registered political parties, the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party dominated the political system. Domestic observers reported that membership in the ruling party conferred advantages, such as preference for public positions. The Milli Mejlis has not included representatives of the country’s main opposition parties since 2010. Opposition members were more likely than other citizens to experience official harassment and arbitrary arrest and detention.
Regional party members often had to conceal the purpose of their gatherings and held them in remote locations. Opposition party members reported police often dispersed small gatherings at teahouses and detained participants for questioning. Opposition parties continued to have difficulty renting office space, reportedly because landlords feared official retaliation; some parties operated from their leaders’ apartments.
Conventional wisdom had long dictated that First Lady (and MP) Mehriban Aliyeva was likely to succeed Ilham Aliyev as Azerbaijan's next President in 2013. She was overwhelmingly popular - perhaps even more so than her husband - and has garnered international attention for her humanitarian and cultural work. However, the idea of extending the presidential term from five years to seven years had been floated several times. According to the Azerbaijani Constitution, extending the presidential term would require a nationwide referendum, for which no one appeared to be making preparations. The government did not seem to be grooming anyone else to take over the Presidency in the near future.
Clashes were expected to grow as antigovernment sentiment mounted ahead of October 2013 elections in which the country’s autocratic leader, Ilham Aliyev, was expected to run for a controversial third term as president. Aliyev has been widely criticized in the West for overseeing a deeply corrupt, oil-fed regime that has systematically muzzled and jailed critics to cement its hold on power.
President Ilham Aliyev's supporters claimed victory in an election 09 October 2013 that was all but expected to overwhelmingly cement his grip on power in the oil-rich former Soviet nation. The head of Aliyev's election campaign headquarters declared shortly after voting ended that the incumbent had secured a new term. "We can express this thought, that Ilham Aliyev has been chosen as the president of Azerbaijan for the coming five years," Ali Ahmedov said. Aliyev, 51, who succeeded his father as leader of Azerbaijan in 2003, had presided over a hydrocarbon boom that has financed the transformation of the capital, Baku, and underwritten an almost tenfold increase in the size of the Caspian Sea nation’s economy over the last decade. While Azerbaijan has enjoyed growing prosperity, government critics say that full-fledged political freedoms remain a distant prospect and harassment of the opposition was widespread. The leading opposition candidate, prominent academic Camil Hasanli, was not expected to receive more than a single-digit percentage share of the vote. Several exit polls, whose reliability was not immdiately clear, showed Aliyev winning with more than 80 percent of the votes shortly after polling closed.
The presidential election in Azerbaijan was undermined by limitations on the freedoms of expression, assembly and association that did not guarantee a level playing field for candidates, the international observers concluded in a statement released 10 October 2013. Continued allegations of candidate and voter intimidation and a restrictive media environment marred the campaign. Significant problems were observed throughout all stages of election day processes and underscored the serious shortcomings that need to be addressed in order for Azerbaijan to fully meet its OSCE commitments for genuine and democratic elections, the statement said.
A high number of observers assessed the situation in polling stations on election day as negative, with significant problems coming in the opening, voting and counting procedures. They reported clear indications of ballot box stuffing in 37 polling stations, and the counting was assessed negatively in an unprecedented 58 per cent of the stations observed.
The 2013 presidential election fell short of international standards. In their joint statement of preliminary findings and conclusions on the election, ODIHR and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly highlighted serious shortcomings that needed to be addressed for the country to meet its OSCE commitments fully. On election day, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and ODIHR observers noted procedural irregularities, including ballot box stuffing, serious problems with vote counting in 58 percent of observed polling stations, and failure to record the number of ballots received.
The ODIHR report noted that, prior to election day, the government maintained a repressive political environment that did not provide the fundamental freedoms of assembly, association, and expression necessary for a free and fair electoral competition. Authorities interfered with the media and civil society routinely, sometimes violently interrupted peaceful rallies and meetings before and occasionally during the 23-day campaign period, and jailed a number of opposition and youth activists. Neither the election administration nor the judiciary provided effective redress for appeals. Credible NGOs reported similar shortcomings.
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