Azerbaijan heading to another snap elections while ignoring long-standing calls to reform

On June 28th, the President of Azerbaijan announced another snap parliamentary election to be held on September 1, 2024 following the request of parliament to dissolve itself. The Parliament cited a clash in calendar with upcoming United Nations Climate Conference (COP 29) in November with an open-endedly worded Constitution allowing such discretion. However, opposition and critics point to the long-standing issues in both electoral laws and the repressive political environment awaiting reforms. 

Last snap elections were held on 7th of February 2024, with the President assuming power for the 5th consecutive time since 2003. Opposition boycotted presidential elections citing worsening human rights conditions and lack of political will to amend electoral laws and stop political persecutions. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and local NGO – Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Center (EMDS), which both observed the elections, underscored legislative and practical shortcomings and widespread irregularities noting a failure to implement long standing recommendations from both itself and the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, claiming these issues have seriously undermined electoral integrity. 

This time, the electoral period is unfolding in the light of an even more complex human rights situation. This is not only because no progress has been made since the latest elections to address those recommendations, but instead authorities have imprisoned well-known human rights defender and head of local election observation election organization EMDS – Anar Mammadli in between elections.  Mammadli and dozens of others are accused of smuggling foreign funds into the country while they are denying charges and claim that they are punished for critical media and civil society work. Meanwhile, local human rights groups report a record number of – 304 – people  imprisoned for political reasons.  Furthermore, the domestic court has recently invalidated the congress results of the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, a major opposition party. This action is considered as potentially aimed at discrediting the legitimacy of Chairman Ali Karimli as the party leader, raising doubt on efforts to create artificial barriers to prevent his participation in elections. Consequently, on July 13rd, PFPA issued a statement announcing their boycott of the upcoming early parliamentary elections, citing reasons including the continued detention of over 300 political prisoners, restrictions on the right to assemble freely, complete government control over election commissions, the absence of independent local election monitors, and a lack of press freedom and a competitive electoral environment.