A group of independent candidates who stood in 1 September’s parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan have called on the Central Election Commission (CEC) to launch an investigation into electoral fraud in the elections.

During and after the vote, photos and footage portraying widespread electoral violations appeared on social media. 

According to the chairman of the CEC, Mazahir Panahov, applications recording voting violations ‘will be sent to the relevant district election commissions immediately’.

He emphasised that only if the applicant was dissatisfied with the decision of the local constituency could they apply to the CEC.

‘On my application, I mentioned that these complaints were addressed to the CEC and the local constituency. The local constituency works under the CEC, why should I apply to them? But Mazahir Panahov said that [the local constituency] would investigate all violations we gave them that we noticed on 1 September’, independent candidate Shafag Mayilova told OC Media. 

Mayilova stated that as an independent candidate, she decided to engage with other candidates to gain strength. 

‘Ulduz Guliyeva, Yasaman Mahmudova, and I decided to collect all the falsifications in our ballot stations and all the videos and documents which we took with the help of our observers. And on Thursday we gave all of these items to the Central Election Committee.’

The three independent candidates added 43 pieces of video evidence, around 40 lists of violations that were noticed by observers, and around 25 result protocols to their application.

Mayilova told OC Media that on election day she waited until midnight, but was unable to take all of the result protocols, which include vote counts from constituencies and districts. 

‘I couldn’t take not only the final protocol, or even the protocols from the ballot stations. For around three days the local constituency played with us saying “Come after three hours, or five hours, or tomorrow”. Sometimes the members of the local constituency workers closed the door and ran away. We understood that they would not give us these protocols, and after that, we decided to apply to the CEC.’

As Mayilova wrote in her application to the CEC, the local constituency did not respond to her requests, and refused to give her a final order and a final protocol. 

According to the law, result protocols include the total numbers of voters, cancelled ballots, spoiled ballots, and valid ballots. Because the protocols include this detailed information, candidates who wish to argue the results of the election are told to include all the results protocols in their application to the CEC.

Hiding the falsification of the voting record

A candidate from the Musavat opposition party, Mustafa Hajibayli, told OC Media that ‘protocols were not drawn up at any polling station during these elections’.

‘The vote counting began three hours after the end of voting. The commission members told the observers who requested the protocols to leave and come back tomorrow’.

Hajibayli said that Musavat had also filed complaints with the CEC.

Another candidate from the Musavat party, Zakir Ismayil, shared one of the protocols which was falsified during the election. 

Ismayil posted on Facebook writing that during the election day, around 142 voters had visited the polling station. However, as a result of carousel voting, 422 people ‘were pulled out of the ballot box with a magic wand’.

The International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) observed 922 polling stations throughout the day. According to the subsequent OSCE report, they found that ‘in 28 observed polling stations the ballot papers received were not counted, while in 43 cases their number was not announced or recorded in the PEC protocols; the PECs did not check whether the ballots were pre-stamped with the PEC stamp in 28 observations; and in 26 polling stations, the serial numbers of the ballot box seals were not announced and were not recorded in the PEC protocols.’

‘The number of ballots in the mobile ballot box was not determined and entered into the protocol in 30 cases. Of serious concern, in addition to during voting, indications of ballot box stuffing were also observed in the count in 17 cases; including 4 where the number of ballots in the stationary box was higher than the number of voters who voted in the polling station and one mobile ballot box with clumps of ballots. Further, IEOM observers noted evidence of deliberate falsification of entries in voter lists or result protocols in 15 cases, and in 8 cases the result protocols were pre-signed by PEC members. Overall, the counting process raised serious concerns about whether ballots were counted and reported honestly’, the report stated.

According to a report by the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, as in previous elections, ‘the copy of the protocol was not hung in front of the polling station, the copy of the protocol was not given to the observers, and there were cases of interference in the process by persons outside the voting process’.

The head of the centre, Anar Mammadli, was arrested on 29 April as part of Azerbaijan’s crackdown on independent media outlet AbzasMedia.

Read in Russian on SOVA.News.