Azerbaijan revealed the list of international organisations that have been invited to observe the early parliamentary elections which will be held on September 1. PACE is not on the list of those organisations.
Why does it matter: It is already the second time that the Azerbaijani government has not invited the PACE to observe elections in the country. Previously, PACE was excluded from the list of invited organisations to the country to observe the early presidential elections that were held on February 7, 2024.
However, it ended up suspending the participation of the delegation of Azerbaijan at PACE temporarily. Some of the MePs of PACE had commented on the non-invitation as a “clear violation of all cooperation rules”.
Current PACE-Azerbaijan relationships: Tension increased between PACE and Azerbaijan, following the decision of PACE not to ratify the credentials of the Azerbaijani delegation. The proposition was given by a member of Germany’s delegation, Frank Schwabe, on the opening day of the PACE’s winter session.
He had emphasized that there are political prisoners in Azerbaijan, in 2023, the visit of PACE co-rapporteurs to Azerbaijan did not take place at least 3 times and PACE was not invited to observe the extraordinary presidential elections. Because of these, the German MP proposed not to ratify the credentials of the Azerbaijani delegation.
As a result, the Azerbaijani delegation decided to suspend its engagement, and participation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Which organisations were invited for the Parliamentary elections: In order to observe the early Parliamentary elections which will be held on September 1, Milli Majlis and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, both sent invitations.
There are in total 7 international organisations on the list of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
- The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)
- The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
- The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)
- GUAM
- The Youth Organization of the Non-Aligned Movement
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)
- The Organization of Turkic States (OTS)
Milli Majlis’s extended invitation list:
- The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
- The CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly
- The Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic Speaking Countries (TurkPA)
- The Parliamentary Union of the OIC Member States (PUIC)
- The Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC)
- The GUAM Parliamentary Assembly
- The Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA)
- The Pan-African Parliament
- The Parliamentary Assembly of the Economic Cooperation Organization (PAECO)
- The ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA)
- The Arab Parliament
- The International Parliamentarians’ Congress (IPC)
- The International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP)
What happened: For the second time, President Ilham Aliyev decided to dissolve the parliament in late June 2024. The early parliamentary elections were set up to September 1 2024.
