TODAY.AZ / Politics

Council of Europe announced its activity plan related to parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan

10 June 2005 [08:37] - TODAY.AZ
The special representative of the general secretary of Council of Europe (CE) Mats Lindberg held a press-conference in the Information Office of CE in Baku yesterday.
He announced the activity plan related to the parliamentary elections to be held in autumn in Azerbaijan of an organization he represented. M.Lindberg informed that the high-level delegation of CE would arrive in Baku during the election campaign. He did not exclude a visit of the general secretary Terry Davis to our country. According to the words of the special representative, one of the details of the activity plan accepted on May 26 is negotiations between the Venice Commission and Azerbaijani government about the changes to the Election Code.

M.Lindberg expressing his relation to these negotiations informed that the main question was that which changes would be accepted by Milli Majlis. According to his words, creating an electron “database” and holding trainings for the members of the election commissions also were included in the activity plan.

Besides, according to the plan, a seminar called “Press and elections” will be held in Baku on June 7. The associate of the Elections and referendums department of the Venice Commission Sergey Kuznetsov will participate in the work of the seminar. In the seminar to which details should be paid attention to when preparing reportage about election and ethical behavior of the journalists will be discussed. It will be spoken about how to solve the conflicts for the judges and trainings will be held in this connection in the seminar. Then the second round of the seminar prepared by CE and the President’s Office will be organized. M.Lindberg informed that he would request Milli Majlis to adopt the bill “About information freedom” in a short period. He said that CE would form monitoring groups consisting of the local representatives during the election campaign. These groups will control the political parties’ holding the election campaign and hold a monitoring of administrative financial sources’ being directed to personal interests or not.

The activity plan also intends to conduct works with electors; the structure will use the help of NGO’s in this work. CE will also realize measures for supporting participation of women in the elections.

A great conference will be held a few times left to the elections, the representatives of the countries being members of CE, especially of the countries which have experience in holding democratic elections will join the measure. One month left before the elections the members of the Monitoring Committee of PACE will hold the monitoring in Azerbaijan.

M.Lindberg remembered that reports related to Azerbaijan would be discussed in the agenda of the session of PACE to be held on June. He hoped that the Azerbaijani’s government allowing the opposition to hold a meeting on June 4 would result in positive changes in the report. As to him, if there are changes in the “About profession of barrister” bill, this will also result in positive opinion.

The CE representative said that the “Ago” group would be in Baku on June 30 and July 1. He informed that the guests to arrive for participation in the sitting of the Monitoring Committee of PACE to be held in Baku on June 5 would meet with the government and political parties. The seminar of PACE called “Migration of the Southern Caucasus’ population” will be held in Baku on June 4.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/19594.html

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