Parliamentary elections were held in

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

on 6 November 2005. They pitted candidates of the ruling

New Azerbaijan Party The New Azerbaijan Party (, YAP) is the ruling political party in Azerbaijan, founded on 21 November 1992 under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev. After his election as President of Azerbaijan on 3 October 1993, and the party's victory at 1995 parl ...

(NAP) against opposition led by the Azadlıq (Freedom) bloc of the

Azerbaijan Popular Front Party The Azerbaijani Popular Front Party (APFP; , ) is a political party in Azerbaijan, founded in 1989 by Abulfaz Elchibey. Since Elchibey was ousted from power in the 1993 military coup, the party has been one of the main opposition parties to the ...

Musavat The Müsavat Party (, from ''musāwāt'', ) is the oldest existing political party in Azerbaijan. Its history can be divided into three periods: Early Musavat, Musavat-in-exile and New Musavat. The party was prohibited from contesting the 1995 ...

and the Azerbaijan Democratic Party. The NAP won 61 of the 125 seats. The elections were not free and fair. Opposition parties were intimidated during the election, campaign workers for opposition parties were imprisoned, and there were allegations of vote-rigging. The coverage by media, whether state-run or private, was overwhelmingly pro-government. Dissident media stations were shut down and journalists were repressed. Freedom of assembly was restricted, preventing opposition parties from holding rallies. Workers were threatened with dismissal unless they voted for the incumbent government. In 2010, the

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ruled that the Aliyev regime had engaged in electoral fraud.

Conduct

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expressed concern about widespread intimidation of opposition supporters, saying that the elections could not be free or fair under such conditions. Several opposition leaders were arrested two days before the elections. ARTICLE 19 said Azerbaijani authorities were responsible for the violent harassment of journalists covering opposition rallies, frequent attacks and forced closure of independent media outlets, and widespread abuse of state and local resources in favour of pro-government candidates. The

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is a regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization comprising member states in Europe, North America, and Asia. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, the p ...

reported that the vote counting process was "bad or very bad in 43 per cent of counts observed."Azerbaijan elections under close scrutiny
Relief Web, 8 November 2005 However, observers from the

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claimed the irregularities "were not of mass character and did not have nimpact on the free expression of voters' will". The opposition had hoped for another color revolution, but analysts doubted this would happen. Movements like Yox!, Yeni Fikir or Meqam were not yet ready for revolution according to Emin Huseynov, founder of Meqam.

Results

The

Central Election Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

reported, with 28% of votes counted, 62% win for the NAP, 3% for the Equality Party, 1% for the APFP, 2% for independent candidates and 2% each to two other small parties. These results were contradicted by a Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research poll which predicted the NAP going from 75 to 56 seats in the 125-member assembly, with the Azadliq bloc winning 12 seats.Poll Stir, QBS
/ref> The Election Commission ruled that the results in four districts were invalid and the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ru ...

annulled the results in a further six. There was a re-run in the ten districts on 13 May 2006 in which the

won five seats, the Justice Party one, the Civic Solidarity Party one and independents three.

References

{{Azerbaijani elections Parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan

Parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Election and referendum articles with incomplete results