“No one can give a recipe of democracy to Azerbaijan abroad. The people of Azerbaijan should use its sovereign right for election,” Patrick Merloe, the head of the Elections Program of the National Democracy Institute (NDI), told a news conference in Baku on Thursday.
Merloe noted that a dialogue between the authorities and opposition should be of positive character, but not be restricted with pre-elections period. «It is necessary to take concrete steps on the establishment of the base of the activities of the opposition bodies,” he noted, not ruling out a possibility for taking extreme steps in Azerbaijan like in other developing countries.
Merloe spoke about result of the meetings held by the NDI delegation headed by Madeleine Albright, the head of the organization, also former U.S. Secretary of State.
A representative of NDI reminded that the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe jointly with the OSCE developed some recommendations which were discussed in a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the head-of-staff of the President’s Executive Office, Ramiz Mehdiyev.
«The VC and the OSCE offer including into the staff of the elections commission per one oppositional representative,” Merloe noted, adding that all documents proposed by the international bodies are of positive character.
In the conclusion Merloe noted that as of totals of presidential elections in 2003 the Central Elections Commission revealed 109 law-breaks, which can be estimated as positive factor and a god lesson for preventing such manifestations in future.