AGAINST ITS OWN SOCIETY

DeFacto Agency
2008-09-29
Armenia

Sergey Nasibian

Chairman of the NKR CEC Sergey Nasibian’s answers to the mass media
questions Question: The Azerbaijani mass media state that on October
15 the most boring presidential elections are going to be held
in the whole history of Azerbaijan. In your opinion, what are the
reasons for such statements?Answer: Many people, both in Azerbaijan
and outside the country, understand that the forthcoming elections
can not be free and just, that the candidates are not provided with
equal conditions. And it is not surprising for a republic, where the
son inherits the power from father.

The elections will indeed be one-man-for-one-seat, as there
is no a competent, authority-independent civil society in
Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, the international observers, who do not
want to fix serious deviations from the democratic norms in Azerbaijan,
and who, as a rule, get away with phrases like "everything has passed
within the law", "certain shortcomings have occurred", "these elections
are better than last year’s", etc., unwittingly contribute to this.

Question: According to you, how can the actual boycott of the elections
by the Azeri opposition be explained? According to the Azeri mass
media, one can not feel pre-election activity either among candidates,
or the electorate.

Answer: To my mind, it does not seem strange. Everything proceeds
from the predetermination of the election results. And all the
symptoms of this are obvious. For instance, even the candidates are
selectively given money for their pre-election campaign; high-ranking
officials of the republic, who by law have no right to take part in
the agitation campaign, participated in the agitation meetings of
"Yeni Azerbaijan" dominant party; technical equipment and domestic
appliances of one of the opposition parties have even been stolen… It
is no coincidence, that some oppositional parties have already signed
a joint statement on recognizing the presidential elections illegal,
essentially, because of the fact that the government did not consider
their requests concerning the free expression of their will in media
and guaranteeing publications in electronic media.

At the same time, the boycott of presidential elections by the
Azeri opposition makes their results doubly predictable. British
non-governmental organization LINKS has particularly noted this. In its
report on the pre-election situation in Azerbaijan it mentions that the
decision of the majority of the Azeri opposition leaves little doubt
in the "victory" of the candidate from the dominant party Ilham Aliyev.

Question: On the threshold of presidential elections, the Azeri
mass media also demonstrates noticeable passiveness in covering the
pre-election processes. How can you explain this?

Answer: Perhaps this can be explained by the fact, that the
governmental newspapers are oriented only to covering the dominant
party’s candidate campaign, while the opposition’s newspapers criticize
the government and do not cover the elections. As a rule, independent
editions that give a full-fledged coverage of the elections are
apparently very few in Azerbaijan.

They confess in Azerbaijan, that a society with legal culture, skills
of political activity, experience of competitiveness and a dialogue
with the state, and even institutions, capable of expressing moods
of this or that group of citizens has not been established in the
country yet.

Question: According to you, what consequences will these "boring"
elections in Azerbaijan have on the region, and particularly, what
influence will they have on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement?

Answer: First of all, the non-democratic elections are directed
against the Azerbaijani society, which will be thrown back again for
at least 5 years in advancing the democratic processes and creating
a true democratic society.

It is also understandable that as a result of such elections the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process will not win either. Ã~@
just and overall solution to the problem may be connected mostly
with the democratization of the societies of conflicting sides and
the maturity of the civil society.

–Boundary_(ID_L1A1HIsHmpEpbwBHuIPOhA)–