The Bush administration should press publicly for free and fair elections in Azerbaijan, Human Rights Watch said today. Azerbaijan’s presidential elections are scheduled for October 15.
In a letter to President George W. Bush, Human Rights Watch urged the administration to call upon Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ilham Aliev, son of current President Heidar Aliev, to ensure balanced election commissions and election monitoring by local rights groups.
“So far the Azerbaijani government has thoroughly manipulated the electoral process,” said Rachel Denber, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division. “Taken together with the government’s attempts to intimidate opposition party workers and activists, it would appear that the government is trying to achieve a dynastic secession without a free and fair vote.”
In the run-up to the election, local human rights groups have documented dozens of instances of government harassment, intimidation and arbitrary arrests of journalists and opposition party activists. Police have beaten or detained hundreds of demonstrators who are protesting the government’s handling of the elections.
The government also manipulated the election law to stack election commissions in favor of pro-government candidates, harassed opposition party activists and journalists, and maintained a policy that prohibits election monitoring by domestic groups that receive more than 30 percent of their funding from foreign sources. The Central Election Commission refused to register as candidates Rasul Guliev, the former speaker of the parliament, and Eldar Namazov, a former presidential aide who is now president of the Public Forum for Azerbaijan. The state-dominated local broadcast media overwhelmingly gives coverage to the pro-government candidates, and the government has attempted to intimidate independent or opposition print media from criticizing the government.
“Azerbaijan has an abysmal record on elections,” said Denber. “The United States and others should demand a free and fair vote.”
The last national election—the 2000 parliamentary vote—was one of the most fraudulent ever observed in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Groups monitoring the election, including Human Rights Watch, found many instances of ballot-box stuffing, fraudulent vote tallying, bullying of local election commission members who represented the opposition, and other violations.
In its letter to President Bush, Human Rights Watch noted that the Azerbaijani public has interpreted recent statements by the U.S. administration on Azerbaijan as favoring the Alievs.
Azerbaijan’s vast oil wealth has not translated to improvements in the standard of living for the population, half of which, according to the government, lives below the poverty line of U.S. $25.80 per month. The country ranks as among the most corrupt, at 95th out of 102 countries, in Transparency International's most recent Corruption Perceptions Index. In the past year, an increasing number of public demonstrations protested against corruption and poor public services.
