Azerbaijan's ruling party claims win in parliamentary

Sun, 07 Nov 2010

Baku/Istanbul - The ruling New Azerbaijan Party of President Ilham Aliyev claimed victory in Sunday parliamentary elections in the oil and gas-rich nation.

"I am certain that we won. We are very satisfied with our results," the party's vice president Ali Ahmedov said in the capital Baku before official results had been released. He called the vote a step forward in the development of democracy.

No disturbances were reported during the ballot, which took place amid opposition allegations of vote-rigging by the ruling party.

Local news agency Trend reported that 50.1 per cent of the more than 4.8 million voters eligible to cast ballots participated in the elections, a slightly higher turnout than in the last vote five years ago.

Nearly 700 candidates were running for seats in the 125-member parliament, including 111 candidates from the ruling party.

Ahead of the vote there were charges by both local and international observers that the government is increasingly cracking down on political opposition and dissenting voices in the media.

"There were many irregularities," said opposition politician Isa Gambar of the opposition bloc Musavat, which put up some 35 candidates.

In the run-up to the election, the government banned the main opposition Popular Front-Musavat bloc from holding public rallies. It has also limited the bloc's ability to claim a majority in parliament by allowing it to contest only 40 seats.

Foreign observers have voiced increasing criticism of recent elections in Azerbaijan, whose energy resources could play a crucial role in Europe's effort to diversify its oil and gas supply.

There are also concern's about the country's ongoing dispute with neighbor Armenia, which has occupied the enclave of Nagorno- Karabakh, also claimed by Azerbaijan.

Aliyev became president in 2003, succeeding his father Geidar, a former official with the Russian secret service who went on to dominate political life in Azerbaijan after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In a recent report, Human Rights Watch accused the Azerbaijani government of harassing members of the country's small opposition press.

"There's been just a steady deterioration in media freedoms, a steady closing of the space," said Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division at HRW. "Journalists see their colleagues getting thrown in prison and it has a chilling effect."

Several Azerbaijani journalists and bloggers who have criticized the Aliyev government have been imprisoned in recent years.

Some 1,000 foreign election observers were in the country for the vote and planned to give a report Monday.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/352409,party-claims-win-parliamentary.html.