‘‘The Independent’’: Azerbaijan tries to buy jury for a large sum during ‘‘Eurovision 2013’’
Azerbaijan tried to buy high scores by offering the jury a large sum of money during Eurovision Song Contest this year. An anonymous member of a delegation participating in the Contest, which took place in Malmo (Sweden), informed the Swedish press about it, reports the British publication “The Independent.”
“The Independent” notes that the given information captured the attention of official EBU representatives, who announced about the start of an investigation on bribery facts.
Particularly, EBU event’s supervisor Sietse Bakker confirmed that facts on corruption with participation of Azerbaijan are being investigated.
The representative of Great Britain Bonnie Tyler told a French newspaper earlier that she overheard how “Russians were complaining to Azerbaijan: ‘Why didn’t you give us the points we paid for?’” writes the author of the article.
Furthermore, the publication reminds that Lithuanian website “15min.lt” has already written about the efforts of Azerbaijanis to buy Lithuanian students, who would vote for Azerbaijan a few times.
A scandal related to voting-results broke out during “Eurovision 2013.” The head of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan claimed that Azerbaijani votes meant for the Russian representative Dina Garipova were not counted. The European Broadcasting Union representatives noted in their own turn that organizers of “Eurovision” officially deny the “loss” of votes given to Russia. A scandal related to vote-rigging in favor of Azerbaijan broke out during “Eurovision 2013.” Lithuanian website “15min.lt” held a journalistic investigation revealing that a group of individuals in Lithuania and other countries massively “bought” votes in favor of Azerbaijan on the day of the Contest. European Broadcasting Union is interested in the given information.