Friday, February 9 2024 15:15

ArmInfo.The U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan has issued the following statement: 

"The United States shares the observations and concerns of the OSCE  ODIHR monitoring mission that the February 7 presidential election  occurred in a restrictive environment with a lack of genuine  competition.

"Azerbaijan has expressed its commitment to fundamental freedoms and  democratic processes in its constitution and international  commitments. We urge Azerbaijan to implement these commitments and  ODIHR's previous and forthcoming recommendations."

Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in  Europe (OSCE) said on Thursday they had "serious questions" about  Azerbaijan's presidential election which veteran leader Ilham Aliyev  won with a landslide.

Azerbaijan's election commission said Aliyev, in power since 2003,  had received 92.05% in Wednesday's vote, with over 93% of ballots  counted, state media reported.

The OSCE in a statement cited "indications of ballot box stuffing"  and a lack of safeguards against multiple voting.

"This raised serious questions about whether ballots were counted and  reported honestly," it said.

"While preparations for the election were efficient and professional,  it lacked genuine pluralism and critical voices were continuously  stifled," the OSCE added.

Rejecting the criticism, Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to  Aliyev, told Reuters the election was "free, democratic and fully  reflected the will of (the) Azerbaijani people".

He said the OSCE was not the only body qualified to judge the  integrity of elections, alluding to other observers from countries  including Belarus and Kazakhstan. He added that some of the OSCE's  findings were not "objective and true".

Aliyev, who took over as president of the hydrocarbon-rich South  Caucasus nation in 2003 from his father Heydar, routinely receives  over 85% of the vote in elections that rights groups say are neither  free nor fair, an allegation officials reject.

Azerbaijan had not been due to hold a presidential election until  2025, but Aliyev brought the date forward after Baku took back  control of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic  Armenians in a lightning offensive last September.