Azerbaijani election commission says foreign observers not invited to oversee municipal elections 

Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission has announced that it was not inviting foreign observers to monitor the upcoming municipal elections,  but ‘will accept anyone’ who offers to monitor the voting process.

Mazahir Panahov, the chair of the commission, explained that ‘of course, we will accept anyone who approaches us. But we will not invite observers from abroad.’

Panahov added that municipal elections are internal affairs of Azerbaijan. 

Municipal elections are scheduled to be held in the last month of the year, every five years. The timing of the upcoming municipal election was changed after COP29, which wrapped up at the end of November. The commission decided the five year benchmark from the previous election, which was held on 23 December 2019, was too close to COP29, and announced a week ago that the election would be held at the end of January. 

Nonetheless, the government called for snap presidential and parliamentary elections in 2024. According to the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studying Center report, serious violations were observed during the voting and vote-counting process on election day. These violations included voting by unregistered voters and ballot-box stuffing in 45% of polling stations, and one person voting multiple times in 43% of polling stations. Nonpartisan observers and journalists faced harassment on election day. The harassment was also directed at citizens who were noting violations or tried to observe the counting process.

As reported by Caucasian Knot, when municipal elections were held last, the turnout was about 33%. The elections were accompanied by massive violations of the law, independent candidates and activists interviewed by the media said. Blogger Mehman Huseynov, in particular, spoke about ‘carousels’ and ballot stuffing. On December 31, the Central Election Commission canceled the election results in Agdash.

Rafig Muradov, a member of the municipality of Garapappag village in Gazakh district, told OC Media that ‘participation of domestic or foreign observers makes no sense. The main thing is that the elections will be fair and then they can take place without observers. Let there be transparent elections’.

Redrawing of the electoral map

Before the election, the Azerbaijani government decided to reduce the number of municipalities, which inherently will impact the number of observers. In the last municipal election, around 17 international observers and 52,636 local observers were present from various political parties, registered candidates, and non-governmental organisations. 

On 18 October, the parliament discussed the draft law on amendments to the ‘List of Municipalities of Azerbaijan’ — an addition to the law ‘On the Territories and Lands of Municipalities’.

The parliament approved the merger of 1,400 municipalities, reducing their total number to 685. The legislation was subsequently signed into law by President Ilham Aliyev.

RFE/RL stated that the reduction in the number of municipalities has not satisfied people, but Muradov told OC Media he is not against the reduction.

‘De facto, we depend on the executive local state agencies, and municipalities have almost nothing to do except sell land. In my opinion, it should be similar to the Georgian version. From each village, two should be elected to the district municipality in the city according to the number of residents, a representative should be elected.’

The opposition party Musavat announced that it will participate in the municipal elections scheduled for 29 January.

According to VOA, Musavat decided to participate in the elections with its candidates, and delegate the authority to nominate candidates to the party’s district organisations. 

At the moment, about 10 political parties, including the REAL party, have announced that they will participate in the municipal elections.

The process of nominating candidates for municipalities is currently ongoing.

According to Freedom House’s 2023 report, ‘power in Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime remains heavily concentrated in the hands of Ilham Aliyev, the formal political opposition has been weakened by years of persecution. The authorities have carried out an extensive crackdown on civil liberties in recent years, leaving little room for independent expression or activism’.

The municipal elections in Azerbaijan were first held in 1999, when there were 2,757 municipalities in the country, but by 2009, many municipalities were merged and the total was reduced to 1,716. Later, the number of municipalities was reduced to 1,606. This year, the same process continued and, thanks to changes in legislation, their number was further reduced by more than half.

The upcoming election will be held in 685 municipalities, and covers 118 constituencies, with a total of 8,071 members set to be elected from these municipalities. The last municipal elections were held at 5,049 polling stations across the country, when 15,156 members were to be elected to represent 1,606 municipalities.