Voting has ended in Azerbaijan’s general election, with the ruling party expected to retain power easily and the opposition alleging foul play, yesterday reports BBC News.<\/p>\n
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Opposition leaders said many of candidates were prevented from registering and the results had been pre-determined.<\/p>\n
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They said the poll would consolidate power in the hands of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party.<\/p>\n
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Observers said election officials had been “overly restrictive.”<\/p>\n
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But Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission defended the voting process, saying it had taken extra measures to ensure the election was fair.<\/p>\n
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The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) sent more than 400 monitors to the elections.<\/p>\n
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In November 2005 \u2014 soon after the colour revolutions swept new pro-Western governments to power in Georgia and Ukraine \u2014 Azerbaijan’s opposition mounted a serious campaign to topple the country’s ruling elite and its party, the Yeni Azerbaijan Party.<\/p>\n
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They took to the streets to contest elections which had failed to meet international standards.<\/p>\n
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But after five years of high oil revenues and economic growth, international observers expected the most predictable election the country has ever seen, the BBC’s Tom Esslemont reports.<\/p>\n
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An exit poll suggested that the ruling party had won enough seats to form a majority in parliament on its own, AFP news agency reports.<\/p>\n
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OSCE monitors said they had received credible reports of voter intimidation; opposition candidates, they said, had in some cases been disqualified for no reason.<\/p>\n
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What is more, our correspondent adds, there was a lacklustre pre-election campaign on the streets and in the media, making for a polling day expected to be clouded by voter apathy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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