OSCE top official congratulates Azerbaijani people on democratic election
By Aynur Jafarova
OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara congratulated the people and the leadership of Azerbaijan on holding democratic presidential elections that represents an important step forward in the country's democratic development.
In his statement , Kozhara welcomed the fact that the presidential election in Azerbaijan was monitored by a large number of observers from authoritative international organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Council of Europe, the European Union (EU), Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and others, as well as by many national delegations from the OSCE member countries.
"I take note of the statement of preliminary findings and conclusions made by the OSCE International Observation Mission as well as the comments of the Special Coordinator. I also take note of the Joint Statement made by the election observation delegations of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, as well as the statements by other international observers," he said. "In these statements the international observers conclude that a number of aspects of the conduct of the Presidential Election in Azerbaijan showed progress towards meeting the OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and other international standards for democratic elections."
Kozhara expressed confidence that Azerbaijan will continue its efforts for further strengthening its democratic institutions.
"The Ukrainian OSCE Chairmanship looks forward to continuing the mutually beneficial co-operation between the OSCE and Azerbaijan aimed at implementing the OSCE principles and commitments," Kozhara said.
The October 9 presidential election in Azerbaijan ended with an overwhelming victory of incumbent President Ilham Aliyev, who was nominated by the ruling New Azerbaijan Party.
According to preliminary election tallies drawn up after processing the ballot papers from all polling stations, Ilham Aliyev got 3,126,612 votes (84.55 percent).