icial_Says_Azerbaijan_Could_Be_Suspended_Over_Amen dments/1513237.html

Council of Europe Official Says Azerbaijan Could Be Suspended Over Amendments

Azerbaijani officials say 90 percent of voters approved the
constitutional amendments.

March 19, 2009

By Ron Synovitz

The president of the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and
Regional Authorities says amendments to Azerbaijan’s constitution,
which were passed in a public referendum on March 18, violate
commitments on democracy made by Baku in 2002.

Ian Micallef told RFE/RL that one of the main concerns is a
controversial amendment that scraps term limits for the president —
essentially allowing President Ilham Aliyev to continue running for
reelection for the rest of his life.

Micallef said implementation of such an amendment would cause Baku’s
delegation to be suspended from the congress and could eventually cost
the Azerbaijan its membership in the Council of Europe, the
continent’s leading human rights body.

"We are speaking here on democracy and the rule of law. We believe
that if there is no limit [on presidential terms], the fact is that a
president can turn into a dictator," Micallef said.
We are speaking here on democracy and the rule of law. We believe that
if there is no limit [on presidential terms], the fact is that a
president can turn into a dictator.

"We believe that a country, a state, should be working on very sound
principles of democracy which were obviously part of the commitments
which Azerbaijan gave to the Council of Europe upon its accession to
the Council of Europe," he added. "Then we are there obviously to
defend that right — to defend such values."

Micallef said moves by the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and
Regional Authorities could come as soon as its next meeting, which is
in early April. He says a decision to suspend Baku’s delegates from
the congress also would be considered as a recommendation for
Azerbaijan to be suspected from the Council of Europe.

In Baku, the head of Azerbaijan’s delegation to the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) responded to Micallef’s
remarks by saying that Micallef was misinformed about the situation in
Azerbaijan.

‘Freedom Of Choice’

Samed Seyidov, who also is a member of Aliyev’s ruling Yeni Azerbaycan
Party, said that visiting members of the PACE had assured him that the
referendum was conducted in a democratic way.

"The result of the referendum gives us an opportunity to take steps in
future, steps which will be acceptable not only for Azerbaijan…but
for future relations with our European partners and, first of all, the
Council of Europe," Seyidov said. "In some cases, as I know, the
absence of information about the referendum and absence of objective
analysis — and some information that is coming from not-so-reliable
and not-so understandable sources in Azerbaijan — have created some
misunderstandings. Even inside the Council of Europe and even between
the international organizations."

Preliminary official results from the referendum show voters
overwhelmingly supporting the constitutional amendments.

The Central Election Committee in Baku has said turnout on March 18
was more than 70 percent of the country’s 4.8 million eligible voters.
It also says more than 90 percent of those who cast a ballot voted in
favor of the constitutional amendments.

Aliyev supporters say they should have the right to elect him as
president indefinitely.

Aliyev’s supporters have argued that the removal of an existing
two-term limit for the presidency would strengthen the freedom of
voters to choose their leader.

"Democratic conditions have not been violated. We have the right to
choose who we like as our president," electoral official Nariman
Mavsumov said. "But why should we deprive the president of the right
to more than two terms?"

But the European Commission for Democracy Through Law, also known as
the Venice Commission, says arguments like Mavsumov’s only sound
attractive in theory.

The Venice Commission says explicit term limits are needed in any
democracy to prevent a president from becoming an authoritarian
leader. It says that is because an incumbent president can easily use
various referendums and elections to strengthen his or her position
and secure reelection.

The commission says that constitutional limitations on successive
terms are meant "to limit the risk of negative consequences for
democracy" that arise when the same person has the possibility of
occupying the presidency for an excessive period of time.

Opposition Cries Foul

Opposition groups in Azerbaijan — which had called for the vote to be
boycotted — are alleging that the referendum results are tainted by
massive fraud.

Liberal Party leader Lala Shovket said monitoring by opposition groups
shows that turnout was 14 to 15 percent — below the 25 percent
threshold needed to make the vote valid and far from the official 70
percent turnout released by election officials. Shovket suggested the
low turnout was an indication the constitutional amendments did not
enjoy the popular support the regime says they did.

Other opposition leaders allege irregularities such as ballot-box
stuffing and multiple voting as well as harassment of opposition
campaigners and the use of government control over the media to
dominate debate in the weeks before the vote.

Isa Qambar, leader of the opposition Musavat Party and Republican
Movement, claimed that the turnout and referendum results were
falsified in order to keep members of Aliyev’s family in power.

"First of all, people said no to Aliyev’s regime. This is the
undisputable and important reality of the referendum," Qambar told
RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service.

"The second point is that the referendum was designed to prolong the
Aliyev family’s hold on power — but will eventually shorten it. We
are representatives of a civic movement that will continue to struggle
in this direction," he added. "I am sure that this fight will end with
the victory of Azerbaijani people."

The opposition civil movement For Karabakh and Republic said on March
19 that it plans to take legal action to cancel the results.

Separation Of Powers

The Venice Commission had warned before the March 18 vote about why
scrapping presidential term limits is a cause for concern. It said a
key principle of the rule of law is the separation of powers between
different branches of the government. It says that in countries with a
presidential system, power tends to be concentrated on the executive
while the powers of the legislature or the judiciary are relatively
weaker.

It says that a regular change of regime through the process of
elections is "the very method to prevent too strong a concentration of
powers in the hands of the president." The Venice Commission also has
noted that comparative studies show the constitutions of most
countries with an elected president impose limits of either one or two
terms.

Until the March 18 referendum, Belarus was the only European
presidential republic that did not limit the number of consecutive
terms for a president. Presidential term limits in Belarus were
removed after a referendum in 2004 — a move that also was criticized
by the Venice Commission for distorting the balance of power in
Belarus.

In the case of Kyrgyzstan, the Venice Commission has pointed out that
in a system where the powers of the president are almost unrestricted,
a constitutional limitation on the number of times a president can be
reelected "may be the only effective check on presidential powers."

Khadija Ismayilova of RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service contributed to this
report from Baku