European expert laments lack of competition in Azeri election
18 September 2008
Azerbaijani news agency APA
Baku, 18 September: "The pre-election atmosphere can be characterized by lack of competition," the head of the OSCE election observation mission, Andres Herkel, has said. He linked the situation to lack of interest in the [15 October presidential] election on the part of the public. The head of the mission said he was confident that this interest would grow after the start of the election campaign [on 17 September].
"The fact that opposition parties are not running in the election does not mean that the election is proceeding in an atmosphere of no competition. We could speak about protecting the rights of opposition parties only if they had been running in the election," Herkel said.
Herkel said that he had discussed the issue of jailed journalists at his meeting with President Ilham Aliyev. He also said that the presidential pardon signed in August had improved the pre-election situation.
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