Grigory Ayvazyan: Today’s presidential election the worst in the history of Azerbaijan

Hasmik Martirosyan
Public Radio of Armenia

Azerbaijani is voting in presidential elections today; ten candidates are running for President. This is, however, an imitation of democracy, experts say. President of the Assembly of the Azerbaijani Armenians Grigory Ayvazyan says, these elections will be the most disgraceful in the history of independent Azerbaijan. This is another attempt to keep power through violation of human rights and an atmosphere of fear.

Although the voting is still in process, the results of the exit poll suggest incumbent President Ilham Aliyev is going to win with 92.15% of the votes.  The opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli comes second with 6.06% of the votes. About 1 million voters reportedly cast their ballot four hours after the precincts were opened.

As for the statements of a number of international organizations and European observers that the elections are organized on a high level and the voter turnout is unprecedented, Grigory Ayvazyan said: “European structures will hardly recognize the elections in Azerbaijan illegal. They will only say the elections did not comply with democratic norms and will register a number of violation, but will not annul the results of voting.” “Europe needs oil dollar,” he said.

Ayvazyan said Armenia should not lose alertness, as the Azerbaijani regime will continue the provocations in the Nagorno Karabakh issue. “Ilham Aliyev will aggravate the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations to keep power. There is one reassuring thing – the vigilance of our authorities. It was well proved by President Serzh Sargsyan’s statement at PACE that if Azerbaijan takes on adventurism, it will lose more territories,” he said.

Opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli has already spoken about election frauds.