Azerbaijan’s ruling party and independent candidates believed to be linked to the government have secured a majority in Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections amidst reports of electoral violations.

The snap elections on Sunday ended with the ruling New Azerbaijan Party securing a majority in parliament with 67 seats, according to Turan. 

Turan has reported that 45 seats went to independent candidates, which many believe are linked to the government.

The Civic Solidarity Party secured three seats, while Justice, Law, Democracy won two seats. Both parties are believed to have ties to the government. 

All other parties that managed to secure representation in parliament won one seat each: Republican Alternative, National Independence, Democratic Reforms, Fatherland, Great Establishment, Great Azerbaijan, National Front, and Democratic Enlightenment.

Jamil Hasanli, the head of the National Council, a movement established by opposition figures in 2013, told OC Media that the independent candidates who secured seats in parliament were ‘more aligned’ with the ruling party, and that the convocation was devoid of any opposition members.

The elections were boycotted by Azerbaijan’s biggest opposition party, Ali Karimli’s Popular Front Party.

‘Falsified results’

Opposition figures in the country, including those who participated in the elections, have claimed that the election results were tampered with and falsified.

Following the election, the National Council issued an appeal urging the international community not to recognise the results. They stated that President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to hold snap elections to ensure that the elections would not overlap with the COP29 climate conference was unconstitutional, citing an article in the constitution which prescribes the requirements and pre-conditions for announcing snap elections.

‘COP29 or any other international event cannot be the basis for calling early parliamentary elections, nor can the President exceed his powers and call elections at any time’, they stated, vowing to boycott the ‘deliberately falsified elections’.

The Council additionally criticised the authorities for not adopting any of the proposals put forward by the Venice Commission to improve ‘electoral democracy’.

The Council also stated that the authorities prevented a PACE delegation of 76 deputies from observing the elections.

Azerbaijan left PACE after the body voted not to ratify the Azerbaijani delegation’s credentials in January. Last week, Azerbaijan banned PACE delegates who voted against the ratification of Azerbaijan’s credentials from entering the country. 

Musavat, an opposition party, has claimed that there were ‘massive violations’ in Sunday’s elections, accusing the authorities of allowing people to vote in Baku despite not belonging to its electoral districts.

According to Musavat, only 62 people voted in the Binagadi district, while the district’s election commission announced that 180 people voted there.

They additionally reported instances of voter carousels, with groups of people being driven around polling stations to cast their votes multiple times.

Vafa Naghi, who ran for a seat in Neftchala, has stated that the votes in her district were falsified in favour of her opponent, Tanzila Rustamkhanli of the Civic Solidarity Party. She shared a post on Facebook claiming that an early count showed that she had 84 votes in one district, but the preliminary results issued by the Central Election Commission showed that she had 0 votes in the same district.

She claimed to be ahead of Rustamkhanli, who overtook her with 1,100 votes counted from four ballot boxes in Neftchala.

While the Central Election Commission vowed to investigate claims of electoral fraud, Azerbaijan’s Public Defender Sabina Aliyeva stated that the parliamentary elections were held in a ‘a democratic, free, transparent, fair, orderly manner, in accordance with the election legislation and international standards, in the conditions of high activity of the population’.

Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission recorded a voter turnout of 37.27%. There are 6,421,000 registered voters in Azerbaijan.

The elections took place against the backdrop of a series of arrests against journalists, pro-democracy activists, and academics, starting with the crackdown on AbzasMedia and other independent news outlets in November 2023 and including the arrest of researcher Bahruz Samadov on charges of treason in late August.

Read in Armenian on CivilNet.