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PACE delegates, led by the Spanish deputy Jordi Xucla, said they would monitor the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan and met the civil society representatives there, Turan agency writes citing a participant of the meeting, Novella Jafaroglu.

According to the report, the civil society activists highlighted during the meeting the constraints imposed on the political parties regarding the upcoming elections. Particularly, the cancellation of the proportional representation and the introduction of the majority system only gives more opportunities to the officials to intervene into the electoral process.

The human rights situation and the current state of the NGOs in the country were also discussed during the meeting. After the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the human rights and NGOs situation, the crackdowns got more intense in Azerbaijan. They started to be pressured and were subjected to groundless checks.

“The activists asked the guests to raise the issue of the necessity to appease the law on NGOs during the meeting with the president of Azerbaijan. The release of the political prisoners would also contribute to the ease of tensions,” Turan writes.

PACE delegates also met with the executive secretary of the movement REAL, Natig Jafarli. He told them that there is no pre-election environment in Azerbaijan, the people do not believe in fair elections and do not want to vote.

He said REAL has put forward 17 candidates and intends to support eight others. However, their final decision as to take part in the elections will depend on the results of the candidate registration and pre-election campaign. “Groundless denials to register some of our candidates, obstacles to conduct pre-election campaign and meet the voters can make us reconsider our decision to participate in the elections,” Jafarli said, as cited by Turan.

PACE delegation invited Jafarli to Strasbourg. However, the Europeans were surprised to learn that he was blocked from leaving the country for already over a year without any court decision.

Further, they discussed the sentencing of the leader of REAL, Ilgar Mammadov, who is not allowed to call home.

Continuing with the topic of the pre-election situation in Azerbaijan, Turan writes that the party Umid reported executive authority intervening into the election campaign. The voters who sign in support to Umid candidates are reportedly pressured to withdraw their signatures. “In some regions, attempts have been made to tear the signed lists or to steal them. This happens primarily in Beylagan, Gedebey, Yevlakh, Agsu, Gazakh and a number of other regions,” Turan writes.

According to the agency, the voters from Beylagan are pressured to declare that their signatures supporting the candidates from Umid have been taken fraudulently.

The party Umid condemns those illegal actions and points to the undemocratic and nontransparent nature of the election campaign.
On 10 September 2015, the European Parliament passed a resolution that calls for targeted sanctions against Azerbaijani officials violating human rights. The draft was prepared by ALDE group and sparked a heated debate over the issue of putting it to the vote. The resolution was eventually passed by a vote of 365-202, with 72 abstentions. Later, on September 11, the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan said Azerbaijan will reconsider its relations with the EU. Malena Mard, the head of the European Union Delegation in Azerbaijan, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry.

Azerbaijan’s Parliamentary elections are scheduled on 1 November 2015. There were recent local reports about the authorities faking a growth of the number of “independent” candidates for the elections. The international agencies reportedly took up rather stern stance regarding the upcoming parliamentary elections. On 11 September 2015, Michael Georg Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), announced that, due to restrictions imposed by the Azerbaijani authorities, ODIHR had no choice but to cancel its mission to observe the country’s parliamentary elections. Earlier, ODIHR had reported about its intention to send 380 observers to Azerbaijan.

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