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Human rights groups and Green Party MEPs have sharply criticized Europe's top human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, for its mild verdict on Azerbaijan's presidential election, the BBC reports.

It says that a delegation of European MPs observed the 9 October vote on behalf of the Council of Europe and declared it "free, fair and transparent". But a separate report by international observers said the election was marred by abuses such as ballot-stuffing.

Green Party MEPs called the PACE/European Parliament statement on the election "a sham". The Green foreign affairs spokesperson Werner Schulz said "the shortcomings of EP's own election observation mission to Azerbaijan call into question the existence of such short-term missions in general.

"The European Parliament loses credibility with statements ignoring the reality of the situation in the country. A handful of MEPs are endangering the European Parliament's reputation in fighting for human rights, democracy and rule of law," the MP noted.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) sent a 45-strong observer team, who issued a joint statement with seven members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on 10 October. They said that "overall around election day we have observed a free, fair and transparent electoral process".

“PACE is a grouping of parliamentarians from the Council of Europe's 47 member states. It says its mission is to uphold Europe's "shared values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law". Azerbaijan will take over the rotating chairmanship of the Council of Europe in May 2014. It has been a member of the council since 2000,” the article reads.

According to BBC, the election monitors from a different international watchdog, the OSCE, reported "significant problems" in Azerbaijan's voting and counting procedures. The OSCE said it found "clear indications of ballot box stuffing in 37 polling stations, and the counting were assessed negatively in an unprecedented 58 per cent of the stations observed". The US government agreed with the OSCE's concerns and said the election "fell short of international standards".

“The OSCE verdict angered Azeri officials - the country's central electoral commission called it "biased" and said Azerbaijan should "reassess future co-operation" with the OSCE. There was no such Azeri threat over the PACE/European Parliament verdict,” the author says.