EXILED EX-PRESIDENT REGISTERED FOR AZERI POLL

Reuters, UK
Sept 6 2005

BAKU, Sep 5 : Azerbaijan’s exiled ex-president was registered to
run in parliamentary elections due later this year which are seen
as crucial to proving the ex-Soviet state’s progress on democracy,
a political ally said today.

The previous registration of another exiled opposition head, ex-speaker
Rasul Guliyev, was seen by his allies as a concession to foreign
pressure for a fair poll although prosecutors have said both figures
will be arrested if they return home.

Ayaz Mutalibov, who led the oil-rich state from 1990 to 1992 when
it gained independence from Moscow, is charged with failing to
prevent Armenians from seizing control of the breakaway region of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Guliyev is charged with massive corruption.

“Today the electoral commission made out a candidate registration
in the name of Ayaz Mutalibov. We start his political campaign from
September 8,” said Araz Alizade of Mutalibov’s Social-Democratic Party.

“I do not think that Mutalibov can be arrested.” The elections are set
for Nov. 6 and are being closely watched for popular demonstrations
like those that overturned the governments of Georgia and Ukraine.

President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father two years ago in
the former Soviet Union’s first dynastic succession, has said such
a revolution is impossible despite opposition threats to depose him
if the polls are rigged.

International organisations have previously condemned Azeri polls
as well short of international standards, but the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) — the continent’s top
vote-monitoring organisation — praised the country’s progress today.

“The Azerbaijan authorities are taking steps to fulfil the
recommendations of international organisations and can resolve all
outstanding problems by November. Azerbaijan’s democratisation is
ongoing,” said OSCE chairman Dmitrij Rupel.

The polls will not be conducted in Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan
claims but has failed to assert any control over since a conflict
over the territory in the early 1990s. All efforts to resolve the
region’s status have failed.