2008 ORDINARY SESSION
________________________
(Fourth part)
REPORT
Twenty-ninth Sitting
Monday 29 September 2008 at 3 p.m.
Mr HERKEL (Estonia). – I must admit that it is a strange feeling to speak about a progress report of the Parliamentary Assembly that covers the period in which a war began between two member states and, even more, a war in which the sovereign state of Georgia was attacked by military aggression, not only against military objects, but against civilian objects and infrastructure. However, that will of course be a matter of further discussion.
I was asked to take the floor as the head of the electoral mission in Azerbaijan. The presidential elections are coming and we had a pre-electoral mission just two weeks ago to assess the situation. What is happening in Georgia, in the Russian Federation and in neighbouring areas is of course influencing what is happening in Azerbaijan – probably not so much the electoral context, but there is a strong geopolitical impact in society as a whole.
During our visit, we had several meetings and we paid attention to certain problems that need to be resolved. At the same time, we had an encouraging statement about the situation, with a strong emphasis on the positive preconditions of technical improvements in electoral administration. A lot of the recommendations made by the Venice Commission were adopted as amendments to electoral law in parliament, but not all of them, and there are still serious problems about how to guarantee equal opportunities to all the participants in the electoral race.
At the same time, we must admit that to some extent it is a question of electoral practice rather than the letter of the law, and we send our best wishes for the electoral campaigns that have just started. However, we must admit that we are talking about quite a closed society, with a number of problems, for example in the media, with three eminent journalists still in prison. That is the main problem. One positive development was that six political prisoners were released at the end of August, but there are still problems to be resolved, and that is not the best condition for the pre-electoral period.
I must also emphasise the fact that five political parties decided not to participate in the elections, but to boycott them. It is a kind of protest against the lack of political freedoms in society. We find that the protest is inadequate, because we cannot protect the political rights of those who are not participating in the elections.
Let me finish with a more philosophical statement concerning our activities in election monitoring and assessing of the development of democracy in different member states. There is a paradox: we have some member states with quite closed societies and we have states that at least make efforts to open their societies for democratic changes. In these new democracies that have opened their societies, all the mistakes are much more visible than in closed societies. It is much more difficult adequately to assess closed societies, which is one of the main problems that the electoral mission in Azerbaijan will face in October.
Tervikdokument: http://assembly.coe.int/