Democracy Forum features sessions on elections and democratic institutions
Baku, November 9 (AZERTAC). The Democracy Forum in Indonesia has featured two sessions on “Conducting Free and Democratic Elections” and “Building and Strengthening Democratic Institutions”.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Liberia Augustine Kepehe Ngafuan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia Julie Bishop and Presidential Spokesperson and Member of the Cabinet Office of the Philippines Edwin Lacierda spoke as panelists
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov highlighted the election experience of Azerbaijan. “The elections are primarily regulated by the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Election Code,” he said.
Noting close collaboration with the Council of Europe and OSCE in development of national legislation, Minister Mammadyarov said that the advanced practice and recommendations proposed by these institutions were incorporated into the legislation.
Speaking about the October 9 presidential election in Azerbaijan, the FM said there were 5492 polling stations, among them 37 stations in the diplomatic and consular missions of Azerbaijan in foreign countries. He added that all polling stations were connected to the State Automated Information System to ensure immediate and regular delivery of voting results on Election Day to the Central Election Commission’s Election Information Center and certain polling stations were equipped with web-cameras for observing the voting and vote counting process online.
Minister Mammadyarov said that election observation was conducted by more than 53,000 monitors, including 1300 international observers, who represented 100 countries and international organizations such as Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, OSCE, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization of Islamic Cooperation and other organizations. He said free, fair, transparent and democratic conduct of elections was reaffirmed by international observers.
Referring to the Joint Statement by the delegations of PACE and European Parliament, Minister Mammadyarov added that according to their assessment the electoral process was free, fair and transparent, while electoral procedures on the eve and on election day were carried out in a professional and peaceful way.
However, the Minister noted that OSCE/ODIHR in accordance with its mandate should provide independent, impartial and professional assessment of election observation and avoid becoming leverage for applying pressure on OSCE participating States.
He expressed his regret that assessments of recent ODIHR election observation reports were still used for blame and shame approach and therefore, Azerbaijan proposed to review the role of ODIHR in the process of election observation and the methodology applied by this institution in assessing the electoral processes.
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