Sergey Kuznetsov: “Not so serious result was achieved in the last discussions between the Venice Commission and the Azerbaijani government”

This was informed by the associate of the Elections and referendums department of the Venice Commission Sergey Kuznetsov in his explanation given to APA.

We should note that the chairman of the Milli Majlis Office Safa Mirzayev and the director of the legislation and juridical examination department of the President’s Office Shahin Aliyev participated in the negotiations from the Azerbaijani side.

S.Kuznetsov said that they had worked all day yesterday and held exchange of views on the possible changes to the Election Code. S.Kuznetsov did not explain the details and stressed that the Azerbaijani side had accepted some recommendations of the Venice Commission.

S.Kuznetsov said that the Venice Commission insisted on making changes to the composition of the Election commissions and said that they put forward that offer already in 2004: “It is a pity that the position of the Azerbaijani side has been remaining unchanged in this problem since that time. The delegation of Azerbaijani stressed again in the last meeting that official Baku did not want the composition of the Election commissions to be changed. The sides kept their standpoint in this problem”.

S.Kuznetsov said that it was the last discussions related to the changes to the Election Code, however, the collaboration between the Azerbaijani government and Council of Europe would be continued in preparation for the elections, technical help, sending observers and etc. S.Kuznetsov did not answer concretely to the “As to your opinion, is it possible to hold democratic elections in Azerbaijan with the present Election Code?” question of the associate of APA repeated insistently.

He informed that all depended on how the Azerbaijani parliament would accept the Election Code: “Besides, the main thing is practice. It will be seemed in the practice that how the Azerbaijani government will organize the elections. If organizers of the elections and the participants of this process try to hold the elections process more democratically then everything will be good. I can not say anything in the present situation. We would like to believe that the elections would be held under the democratic conditions.