No fair elections in Azerbaijan?

"It pains me to report that progress noted in the pre-election period was undermined by significant deficiencies in the count" said Alcee L. Hastings, coordinator of the election-observers and President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in his press release after the elections in Azerbaijan.

Azer-what? Azerbaijan is a former-soviet republic on the (geographically speaking) far eastern end of Europe in the Caucasus. It's rich with petrol and history, and that first topic might be the main reason why especially the British media has covered it widely over the last weeks. A holding of BP has rented half of the country, or, more precise, most of the sea as most of the natural resources of Azerbaijan is at the shores of the Caspian Sea. More details on Azerbaijan in general might follow later, and I'll post an English press review as soon as I find the time. The president is elected every two years. Since his father Heydar Aliyev died almost two years ago, the son Ilham Aliyev is in charge. We've travelled to Azerbaijan in 2002 when Heydar Aliyev was still president. He had the reputation of a cunning fox - whitty and tricky, with good connections to Moscow as well as London and Washington. The move in which he made his son his successor was close to scandal, but had only minor affects on the country's situation towards it's European allys and trading partners. This time the OSZE monitored the elections in a long-term "election observation mission". In the official result the leading Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyasi - The New Azerbaijan Party - is the clear winner. Let's see what the big report says in a couple of weeks...