The Guardian: Organizers tighten rules after Azerbaijan’s attempts to affect ‘‘Eurovision’’ contest voting results
Eurovision Song Contest organizers will ban countries guilty of vote rigging for up to three years. According to the Guardian EBU made this decision due to the evidence found of an attempt by Azerbaijan to try to buy votes during last year's competition in Sweden
It reads that, Azerbaijan was accused of trying to buy votes from jurors and members of the public taking part in the telephone poll during last year's event.
The Eurovision Song Contest's executive producer, Jon Ola Sand, told MediaGuardian: "The ban is up to three years and no-one should be in any doubt that we will act if we detect voting fraud.”
According to him, when he saw the video, which showed how the Lithuanian students were being bribed, to vote for Azerbaijan, "he was deeply perturbed."
We did the investigation we could, but we don't have the tools or the methods of the police. We are confident that the broadcaster itself is not involved," Jon Ola Sand said.
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.Last week the EBU launched a broad investigation concerning the possible bribery in "Eurovision" on the part of Azerbaijan.
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