The meaning behind Azerbaijan’s forged elections

Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, at a Russia-Azerbaijan forum in 2018. Photo: Website of the president of Russia (CC) http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/58637

Consequently, in many cases, YAP candidates did not run any campaign at all, which means they lost by default. In a number of districts, however, real political competition took place among candidates loyal to the authorities. These were usually the members of the so-called “old guard” or “reformist technocrats”. Such form of political competition, which took place inside the system, did not yet lead to the creation of any strong parliamentary fraction. Thus, despite the defeat of many YAP candidates, all positions but one in the parliament have been filled by candidates who were loyal to the government.

What independent observers saw during the elections

The Azerbaijani elections were observed by both international observers, including the 356 short- and long-term observers from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA), and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), as well as national observers from different states. The former, the ODIHR Election Observation Mission (EOM), published, a day after the elections, its “Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions” (the final report has not yet been formally published). In this Statement, the EOM stressed that “significant procedural violations during the counting and tabulation of votes on election day raised concerns over whether the results were established honestly”. In addition, it stated that a “restrictive legislation and political environment prevented genuine competition in Azerbaijan’s early parliamentary elections [and that] despite the large number of candidates, voters were not provided with a meaningful choice, due to a lack of real political discussion”. It has to be noted though, that ODIHR EOMs’ communiqués are always written in a diplomatic language balancing the seriousness of the observed violations and the wish not to offend the authorities of the host states, who do, after all, make up the OSCE.

More straightforward communiqués, which directly point to electoral fraud, were published by national observers. On the day of the elections they observed a systemic inflation of the officially reported electoral turnout. According to the Baku-based civil society group, Institute for Democratic Initiatives, the real turnout in 33 observed election districts was 20.6 per cent, as opposed to the officially reported 47.8 per cent. Another Azerbaijani group of observers, those linked with the Election Monitoring and Democratic Studies Center, also reported serious breaches of election law. These included ballot stuffing, multiple voting (by the same person), as well as illegal addition of ballots after ballot boxes had been emptied during counting. In a situation where the election turnout was drastically inflated, such activities were aimed to help the election administrators “balance out” the real number of voters who came to polling stations on election day (real turnout) and the significantly larger number of votes which was reported by election commissions (official turnout).

The aforementioned conclusions were further confirmed by the results of video-observation performed by a Polish NGO, the Political Accountability Foundation. In our work, we used the publicly available streaming from cameras installed in polling stations. In those polling stations (located in Baku and the north-west region Qax), we discovered cases of multiple voting (by the same persons). Most importantly, however, in as many as four out of the six polling stations we had observed, we noticed that the difference between the real turnout and the official one was more than twofold. The total number of the so-called “dead souls” we discovered (people who cast their ballots, according to official data, but never made it to the polling stations) was nearly 1,500.

Similar conclusions confirming the mass scale of electoral fraud were reached by Russian observers involved in the Golos Movement, who specialise in statistical analysis. They pointed out that in a number of electoral districts the official turnout and/or official support for the candidates in all, or nearly all, polling stations, was almost identical. Therefore, when presented on a chart the turnout and/or support in these elections follow a straight line, while in the case of “normal”, democratic elections the picture should be much more diverse. This further confirms the thesis that the election results were manipulated.

Baku’s reaction

ODIHR’s concerns, as well as those expressed by domestic observers, were partially recognised by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). Numerous inaccuracies were the reason why the CEC annulled the election results in four out of the 125 election districts, thus depriving two YAP candidates and two independent candidates of their mandates. Taking the CEC’s decision into account a few days after the elections, Aliyev promised to investigate all cases of election irregularities. He also said that the ODIHR EOM’s statement was “more objective than before”, adding that nonetheless “we could not agree with some of their conclusions”.

Clearly, the opinion of “alternative” international observers was more valuable for the Azerbaijani authorities. For this reason, they invited over 50 international observation missions, including many widely-known organisations which, nevertheless, have limited experience with election observations, or are known for publishing findings aimed at supporting specific political groups or state authorities. Such positions, which are in no way a truthful representation of reality, were presented by the election missions sent by the Parliamentary Assembly (PA) of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, the Commonwealth of Independent States, GUAM, the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development PA, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the PA of the Turkic-speaking Countries. These organisations recorded no election fraud even though it was not particularly challenging to uncover. Instead, the elections they observed were honest, competitive and free, and were carried out in accordance with democratic standards and national law.

In addition, the elections were observed by different observation missions, whose work is called by experts and international affairs professionals “fake observation”. Participants of such missions often include politicians from the Russian Federation as well as some European states. The latter are usually representatives of extreme political parties, both on the left and right. Among these “observers” were some Azeri and Turks, holders of non-Azerbaijani and non-Turkish citizenship; as well as parliamentarians from European states – members of inter-parliamentary bilateral groups for the relations with Azerbaijan. Members of these “fake observation missions” were often guests of Azerbaijani media outlets where they parroted the same narrative as Azerbaijani authorities about the high election turnout, democratic standards and even declared that the elections had been conducted better than in their own countries. Their statements were later repeated by various Azerbaijani media and promoted by the Central Election Commission which published them on its website in English and Russian. The presence of such figures during the Azerbaijani elections was not unusual. “Fake observers” are a popular phenomenon in countries and regions where democratic standards are known to be low. In the post-Soviet space such missions are often organised by specialised oversight organisations and financed by the Russian authorities.

“Quiet revolution”

The activities around the election process were, however, not the sole component of the Azerbaijani government’s strategy for this year’s election. Clearly, the authorities in Baku wanted the discussions on the election to be as far from the assessment of its conduct and outcome, as possible. From the very beginning Aliyev planned to use the elections as a show of support for the modernisation efforts he announced. The deputies of the National Assembly, who, by the end of November 2019, called on the president to organise early elections, wanted the schedule of the legislative works to be harmonised with the reform plan initiated by the president. A similar view, stating that the introduction of social and economic reforms will be possible only after a change in the National Assembly, was put forward by the ruling party’s highest authorities. Their declarations were accompanied by very clear suggestions that the National Assembly should be made up of younger deputies, and that it should include more technocrats and fewer professional politicians.

A few days later, on December 5th 2019, Aliyev signed a decree on the dissolution of the National Assembly. The decision to organise an early election was made after a change of prime minister, which took place in October. The office of the PM was filled by Ali Asadov, believed to be a non-partisan technocrat, who replaced Novruz Mammadov who was nine years older than Asadov and affiliated with YAP.

The above narrative was repeated and expanded through Azerbaijani public diplomacy activities which were primarily targeted at foreign analysts and politicians specialising in the South Caucasus in particular and the post-Soviet space in general. As part of the pre-election PR campaign during private and public speeches, as well as through international media outlets, the thesis of a “quiet revolution in Azerbaijan” was promoted. This revolution, unlike others, was said “not to incline any violence”. It was meant to symbolise a generational and mental change: as a result of the election, young Azerbaijani, educated at elite universities across the world, were supposed to enter the National Assembly and thereby accelerate the implementation of Aliyev’s reforms.

These new deputies were to assist state officials who had been holding offices in public administration since 2019. This “new generation of politicians” was to secure the implementation of reforms which were said to be halted by older politicians from ministries and public offices. Materials promoting such messages were enriched by infographics illustrating “successfully implemented” reforms and investments which would allow Azerbaijan to advance in “international rankings”. An analysis of a number of published op-eds and “analytical materials” shows a huge overlap in content, despite the fact that their authors came from different states and often did not come from Azerbaijan.

The results of the election, where 87 out of 125 deputies (70 per cent) retained their National Assembly seats, are the best evidence that no “quiet revolution” has taken place, though 30 per cent exchange of deputies between two terms of parliament is quite a standard number in many OSCE-participating states. This, combined with a large number of cases of electoral fraud, explains why – especially in the first days after the elections – the PR campaign of the Azerbaijani government stopped for a moment, to later come back – in a modified form.

In the weeks following the elections, international media outlets were widely declaring its big success. They talked about the achievement of Aliyev’s earlier reforms, the need for evolution not revolution, and a broad and independent foreign policy. In addition, new ways of promoting these narratives were added. This time, analyses were mainly written by authors from Azerbaijan, including the well-known Esmira Jafarova who is a board member of the Baku-based Center of Analysis of International Relations. Also, because the new National Assembly was not made up of as many young people as it had been expected, the commentators started to point out how many young candidates with no connection to any of the political parties had run in the elections. The emphasis was not put on their victory, but rather on a sole fact that they ran. The statistics were jacked up by, among other things, the participation of young Azeri oppositionists in the early elections, who decided to participate in them after they had become convinced that the process would be relatively honest. In this second wave of publications, there was no mention of the destructive influence the “old guard” had on the state. Instead, they emphasised the need to respect those who had many years of service to the State, a breadth of experience that “should be used” for its good.

The significance of these elections is also shown by the fact that over 130 international media outlets from over 50 countries wrote about them. However, these reports did not mention the poor standards that characterised the majority of organisations present to observe the elections. They also did not pay attention to the high number of electoral fraud cases recorded.

What the election tells us

A thorough assessment of this year’s parliamentary election is not a simple task, since, as it’s been demonstrated, it was not based on democratic standards and the results were forged. Arriving at this conclusion was not extremely difficult. Neither was gathering sufficient evidence to support it – using available video footage from polling stations, as well as the information from the ground shared by professional observation missions. This way, one could easily conclude that both the Azerbaijani authorities and all international observation missions, with the exception of the ODIHR, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and PACE, presented a false picture, calling this year’s election free and fair.

In terms of voter turnout, the officially announced 47.8 per cent was not particularly high, though the actual nationwide figure was near 20 per cent. This suggests that the propaganda that Azerbaijan will undergo huge reforms was not believed by many voters. The fact that the turnout in some polling stations was as low as 10 per cent can even suggest that Azerbaijanis decided to boycott the elections.

This is rather typical for some states in the region where results of elections have been falsified for many years and state propaganda is detached from reality. The same can be said about the low turnout (10-30 per cent) in the 2018 presidential election, as observed in Russia’s North Caucasus. Even though there is no adequate sociological interpretation of this fact, it seems reasonable to say that living in non-democratic states, the people of Azerbaijan and of the North Caucus understand that their vote has no meaning whatsoever.

It is certainly a lot more difficult to interpret the support that characterised this year’s election. Could it have been won by the opposition? Who really was endorsed by voters – the “old guard” or the “reformers” supported by the authorities? And who, among the pro-government candidates, was to win the elections in individual districts? Apart from the fact that the elections were forged, it is only certain that not in all regions of the country their results were known from the very beginning. Hence, the frustration of many young pro-government “reformist” candidates who were cheated and deprived of a chance to be elected. Any attempt to talk to them and discuss the reason for their failure brings no effects. Their active presence in Azerbaijani politics is still dependent on their loyalty to the regime and any discussion about electoral fraud with international media could end badly for them.

Will the new Azerbaijani National Assembly be able to start the large modernisation that was announced by Aliyev and promoted by his administration? Theoretically, yes, one could imagine a scenario in which the “young technocrats” are engaged in the reform process in a different, extra-parliamentarian way. However, in practice, it is hard to imagine that the reform programme of the country would be built upon the foundation of large scale electoral fraud, instead of the proclaimed modernisation of the National Assembly.

Translated by Iwona Reichardt

Mateusz Bajek is a specialist in electoral video-observation with the Warsaw-based Political Accountability Foundation and the main author and editor of the Introduction to the methodology of electoral video observation (2019).

Azerbaijan, elections, Ilham Aliyev