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The officially announced election results in no way reflect the actual voting results. Thus, elections in Azerbaijan do not meet international standards, the statement of the European Platform for Democratic Elections reads.

“According to reports of the national and international observation missions, the Azerbaijani presidential election of October 9, 2013 was marked by gross violations of electoral rights of citizens and massive manipulations of the will of the citizens of Azerbaijan,” the alliance notes.

Of particular concern are the repressions against independent observation organizations in Azerbaijan that followed the presidential election of October 9, 2013.

The Platform expresses protest against frivolous and unlawful criminal prosecution of a member of the Coordinative Board of the Platform, the head of the Azerbaijan-based Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS), Anar Mammadli, and other members of the organization, who have been under investigation. Apartments of the organization’s members were searched and the activists themselves were interrogated by order of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan. The organization's leader, Anar Mammadli, and four other civil activists have been prohibited from leaving the territory of Azerbaijan.

Alliance expresses its regrets for actions of the Azerbaijani authorities against the prominent organization of Azerbaijan for its “independent, honest and principled position in assessing the results of the presidential election in Azerbaijan.”

On October 9 presidential election were held in Azerbaijan during which incumbent President Ilham Aliyev received 85% of votes. Jamil Hasanli, a single candidate from the opposition National Council of Democratic Forces, was on the second place. He scored 5.5% of the vote. The joint statement of the ODIHR / OSCE observation mission and the Parliamentary Assembly, noted that the presidential elections were held in Azerbaijan in terms of restriction of freedom of speech and assembly. In its turn, the Minister for European Affairs David Lidington stated that the British Foreign Ministry shares the OSCE / ODIHR’s opinion that the presidential elections held in Azerbaijan failed to meet the commitments with OSCE. Opinion of the OSCE and the United Kingdom are also divided the U.S. Department of State.