Local Elections in Azerbaijan Marked by Open Fraud, Expert Says

The Kurdish scholar and Turkologist Karen Hovhannisyan stated on his Facebook page: "Local elections in Azerbaijan were marked by obvious fraud, as evidenced by numerous videos and photographs released by opposition members and individuals involved in monitoring missions. There were instances where monitoring mission members were forcibly removed from polling stations by police forces. The Azerbaijani authorities employed an interesting tactic: in order to prevent the blatant filling and carousel voting from having a negative impact on voters, it was decided that after noon, Ilham Aliyev would give interviews to several television channels, which would be broadcast live.

This diverted citizens' attention from the main topic of the day to another equally significant topic— the interview. Subsequently, through Aliyev's warlike statements and declarations regarding "moral" victories over Armenia, they aimed to leave a powerful impression of a strong Azerbaijan with all its consequent implications on the domestic audience. In his statements, Aliyev repeatedly emphasized that only this government of Azerbaijan can deliver a "deserving, devastating blow to Armenia."