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Falsification of statistics of official state bodies of Azerbaijan has long received publicity. It is noteworthy that the issues related to serious falsification of the population of Azerbaijan have been discussed even in the CEC of Azerbaijan and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

Thus, in June 2013, Akif Gurbanov, member of the Central Executive Committee of Azerbaijan stated: "Population amounting to 9 million 356 thousand people are indicated in the State Statistical Committee’s report on population of the country. In the same time more than 6 million 467 thousand people are aged above 20. In the CEC report, the number of voters already reaches 4 million 986 thousand people. The difference in numbers makes one and a half million. Where are these voters?"

In July 2013, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), expressed concern in its report about the fact that, according to the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan, the number of people older than 20 years is more than the number of voters by 1.5 million, the Central Election Commission said.

According to the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan, there are 6.8 million people aged over 18 living in the country. In the same time, as news agency "Trend" reports, on May 29, 2013 Mazahir Panahov, the head of the Central Election Commission, stated that the number of voters in the country was 4,986,296 people. Thus, it becomes apparent that the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan has overestimated the number of citizens aged over 18 at a minimum of 1.8 million or 36%.

It is noteworthy that, according to Panahov, most of the voters are in the 19-30 age group (1,317,353 people), and according to the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan, there are 2.15 million people aged 19-30. That is, the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan overestimated the number of citizens in this age category by 63% (!).

This situation would definitely lead to a serious scandal in almost every country; in Azerbaijan, however, this difference of half-million voters and the number of citizens aged over 18 is repeated from election to election. Discrepancies in demographic statistics, however, are found in other areas as well – for example, in education. Thus, in July 2012 scandal broke out in Azerbaijan, concerning the fact that 11 years ago 133 thousand children had entered public schools, but had finished only 70,000 of them, which is less with 39%. According to Azerbaijani expert Alovsat Osmanli the Education Ministry of Azerbaijan has failed to explain where these pupils have "disappeared". However, the responsible officials faced no consequences.

The reason for this situation is that the data on the Azerbaijani population are falsely increased it by the order of the authorities of the Republic, as the latter use "demographic superiority" factor in the information war against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly made statements saying that "the population of Azerbaijan is growing, while it’s declining in Armenia," and this fact, according to him, is one of the components of the forthcoming victory of Baku in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In reality, Azerbaijan has had the advantage both in population and in size of the armed forces during the wartime too. Despite this fact Armenian soldiers took victory on the battlefield.

In general we can state that in the pursuit of a "virtual advantage in number," the Azerbaijani authorities have reached fantastic results in the process of falsification of population of the Republic. Here is just one example; as shown above, the number of people aged over 18 is overstated by 36% and the number of people aged 19-30 is overstated by 63% (!).

In previous articles on this topic we have already presented that the population of Azerbaijan is overstated by State Statistical Committee of this Republic with about 37%. In the same time, the falsification of the population is implemented in several main directions:

• Millions of citizens who have left the Azerbaijani republic many years ago are estimated among the main population.

• The current migration from Azerbaijan, which reaches tens of thousands of people, is not taken into account.

• Overestimation of Data on fertility is being done, which allows to "discount" hundreds of thousands of virtual citizens among the Azerbaijan population, which did not ever exist in reality.

• "Double-counting" of Azerbaijanis, who once lived on Nagorno-Karabakh territory, is being carried out. Now they are estimated both by their place of residence and the place where they lived before 1994.

In fact, the calculations show that the population size of Azerbaijan is overstated by the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan with about 3.5 million people, and is unlikely to exceed 5.8 million. Probably, the Azerbaijani authorities assess the potential of their population so low, that the existing two-fold superiority in numbers seems extremely insufficient to them. Over time, the data published by the state structures of Azerbaijan get more and more detached from reality, in the same time assuming fantastic scales. However, the Azerbaijani authorities, who are engaged in information war with Armenia, are not worried about it.