Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 2 2005
Mats Lindberg held press conference dedicated to fulfillment of CE
Action Plan on parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan
02 September 2005 [14:23] – Today.Az
Special Representative of Council of Europe Secretary General to
our country Mats Lindberg held press conference dedicated to the
fulfillment of the Action Plan about the parliamentary elections in
Azerbaijan confirmed by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers.
He reminded that, roundtable on elections was held for the government
and media representatives in July and as the result “Code of
behavior of mass media of Azerbaijan during the election campaigns”
appeared. M. Lindberg noted with regret that no all the mass media
signed the document.
Calling on all the mass media to join the document, M.Lindberg also
added that he will recommend Council of Europe Secretary General Terry
Davis who will be on a visit to Baku next week to draw pro-governmental
media, opposition-minded media and independent media to join to the
code of behavior. He stated on behalf of the organization he represents
that he will do his best to held monitoring of mass media on the
election campaign: “We have not made decision yet, but I suppose
the monitoring will cover 40 printed press bodies. There are enough
professional persons in Azerbaijan to make independent investigation
.As concerns the monitoring of TVs we shall have talks with TV and
Radio Council of Azerbaijan regarding this”.
According to him, Council of Europe experts will give trainings for
the members of CEC, district and precinct electoral committees, and
make recommendations on how to organize the work of the commissions on
7-8 September. CE Venice Commission experts will come to Azerbaijan and
will make recommendations to the CEC on how to work on the applications
of complaint received after the elections. Venice commission experts
will also hold trainings for the judges of Azerbaijan. They will be on
a visit to Baku on 29-30 September and provide trainings on the rules
of looking into the complaints. It is also planned to hold an event
on prevention of corruption. In addition, pre-election trainings will
be given to the police and Interior Forces on how to treat towards
the people in order not to violate their rights and to preserve law
and public tranquility. The Code of behavior of Azerbaijani police
will be prepared in October.
CE Information Office in Baku has published books entitled “Codex
of the best experience on election issues”, “Balanced participation
of women and men in politics and in making important decisions
with regard to the state”, “Women’s rights to individual voting”,
“Media and elections” and distributed them with regard to the
forthcoming elections. The office has prepared advertisement reels
in 3 directions. The goal is to inform the voters about the election
procedure, propagate elections and make explanation of parliament.
Posters are made for this purpose too.
Assessing the current pre-election situation, M.Lindberg noted that,
the process of registration is going on according to the rule and
no one has been rejected yet. Stating that the process of delivering
voter’s cards was delayed a little bit, the CE representative hoped
that these cards will not give opportunity to the voters to vote
several times on the Election Day.
Responding to the question on assistance to the CEC in making the list
of voters of Armenian origin in Khankendi Constituency Election #122,
he said that he received the appeal yesterday: “I must consult with the
headquarters. I have to confess that this is a very difficult process”.
/APA/
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress