Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian offered the following comment regarding yesterday’s presidential elections in Azerbaijan and the State Department’s assessment issued earlier today:
“The State Department says Azerbaijan’s election ‘fell short of international standards,’ while, in truth, it didn’t even come close.”
“This wasn’t an election at all, but rather a poorly stage-managed spectacle, designed to provide some semblance of political cover for an international community that, sadly, long ago chose to stand aside as the Aliyevs consolidate their private ownership of Azerbaijan and push their one-family rule into a second half-century.”
“The citizens of Azerbaijan – and their neighbors in Armenia and Artsakh – deserve better than a petro-monarchy that siphons off the nation’s wealth, abuses its own citizens, is driving the region toward renewed war.”
The complete State Department statement on the Azerbaijani Presidential Elections is provided below.
