On Monday, the Milli Mejlis of Azerbaijan has put an end to the disputes and expectations, concerning the amendments and additions to the Election Code, which will determine the legislation standards of the autumn presidential elections. The predictions of the opposition and especially those of the candidate for presidency, the former assistant of Geidar Aliyev- Eldar Namazov – have proved only partially.
Along with the negative changes impeding the elections of the candidates, alternative to the President, the updated Election Code also contain the positive. According to it, from now on the candidates will have to collect not 50 thousand signatures of their supporters, but only 40. Though the election campaign period has also been shortened from 120 to 75 days. A considerable financial deposit, which the candidates were supposed to give to the Election Committee in case they refused to collect signatures of supporters, so that their name would be registered in the Central Election Commission, was also cancelled. The opposition "had predicted" that the amount of the deposit would increase twice.
Namazov was stating that all the Azerbaijanis, living abroad more than five years would be forbidden to participate in the elections as candidates. Whom he had in mind first of all were the opponents of Ilkham Aliyev - Ayaz Mutallibov and Rasul Guliyev. The first one lives in Moscow, the second has settled in the U.S. But deputies devised another wording for this – persons, having obligations to other states, cannot participate in the elections for five years.
Under the new Code, a voter, having not found his/her name on the lists on the day of the elections, may be included by the decision of the local election commission, while before it was necessary to have a regulation of the local court. This is sure to be approved by the opposition, but as Namazov had predicted, the election campaign was prohibited on the State TV channel. For this purpose the candidates will be granted airtime at the public television.
The information on the coming ban of sticking the agitational posters on the walls of the houses has already been confirmed. Henceforth the whole electoral campaign will be available on the stands, specially allocated for this purpose. The walls of the Azerbaijani towns, at least, will remain clean after the elections.
One of the important points, as considered by the deputies, is a clause of the new Code, providing holding the elections in military units by the Central Election Commission. This prerogative used to belong to the Ministry of Defence that caused criticism of international organizations. The elections in military units will now be held 5 days in advance before the main voting.
Under the changes made, the preliminary election results should be published immediately upon receipt of the Protocols from the district election commissions, though earlier this procedure used to take at least two days.
The alterations of the Azerbaijani Election Code have been extremely negatively perceived by the oppositional parties. Since Tuesday (and amendments and additions to the Election Code have been adopted by Milli Majlis on Monday) the leading political forces of the Azerbaijani opposition have been discussing the new situation. The Musavat party does not also exclude the possibility of refusing participation in the presidential elections scheduled for October this year. The party believes that the Code has not only failed to take into account the demands of the opposition and international organizations, but on the contrary, even more strict demands have been included into it. "Musavat" is expressing its protests against the current amendments to the Election Code.
Heated discussions have been ongoing within the political bloc "Azadlyg", led by the Narodny front party.
The new law has some positive points, for example, the clause on provision the voter’s name to be registered in the voting list on the decision of the election commission, without addressing to the court. But the negative, in the opinion of the opposition, is prevailing.
Thus, the ban on holding the election campaign on the State TV channel is explain by the parties as a fear of the authorities to lose the public support, if truth becomes known to the whole population. The fact is that the State channel AzTV is the only one that can be watched throughout the territory of Azerbaijan without resorting to additional technical installations.
Another innovation has been apprehended disapprovingly – the decision of the deputies to disavow making the deposit by the candidates for exempting them from duties to collect tens of thousands of signatures from the supporting voters. Earlier, during the discussion of changes in the law, the opposition was afraid that the deposit amount would increase twice. But now they are dissatisfied, as they think they will have to collect signatures, which the CEC can anytime call to be counterfeit, and refuse to register the candidate.
And, finally, the ban for holding meetings and assemblies at a distance of 200 meters from the nearest government building remains in force. Being aware of the peculiarity of Baku, where all the important government agencies are located on a small "patch", one can be easily convinced that the ban actually prevents the possibility for the opposition to express its demands in a place visible by the authority figures.
Will the opposition parties take part in the presidential elections or after a long discussion they will come to a joint decision to boycott? Responding to this question, an authoritative Azerbaijani political scientist Rasim Musabekov noted that the world politics does not believe a boycott to be a productive and effective means of political struggle. On the contrary, this is the reason why envoys from various international organizations and friendly countries strongly recommend the Azerbaijani parties not to boycott, but to participate in all election campaigns.
According to the electoral law currently in force, in the view of Musabekov, the boycott is in fact senseless. Firstly, there is no quorum in the elections, which might be broke through boycott. Secondly, the legislation prohibits active boycott, defining it as an obstacle to the will of voters. Taking into account the weakness of the opposition and the lack of unity in its ranks, the possibility of turning a boycott of elections into a campaign of civil disobedience is virtually excluded. In such conditions the boycott becomes a banal non-participation in the elections, which is impossible to be transformed into a sound political tactic - the political scientist resumed. |
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