Election Day in Azerbaijan: A Litany of Fraud

With what observers have called “the boringest election ever,” Azerbaijanis took to the polls today to re-elect President Ilham Aliyev in what was predicted and pre-determined to be a landslide. Even though the country’s two primary opposition parties boycotted the vote, Aliyev still faced six opponents for his seat, most of whom encouraged their supporters to vote for Aliyev instead. This is a summary of how the day turned out, as seen through social media. 

In the run-up to election day, everything was carefully cultivated to ensure a propaganda coup with great optics for his regime. 

Election observers fell into one of these categories:  

1. The uninvited: This includes the entire Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which is traditionally invited to observe elections in former Soviet states along with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). 
2. The expelled: Swiss MP Nik Gugger, an OSCE observer, is in a special category, as upon showing up was promptly expelled from the country, likely for his past criticism of Azerbaijan’s dictatorship and attacks on Nagorno-Karabakh. 
3. The specially invited: The rest of the OSCE observers aren’t the only Europeans in town. The Azerbaijani Laundromat scheme bribed corrupt officials to support the country, with various recipients now in jail, but Azerbaijan still has friends in high places. More on that later. 

There was speculation as to just who would actually be voting in ethnically cleansed Karabakh as it has no residents. As it turns out, those voters would include President Aliyev and his family, as they triumphantly showed up to cast their votes at the former Presidential Palace in the now-empty city of Stepanakert (a video we will not be amplifying by sharing). Even though they were not permitted to vote there since they aren’t residents, apparently the Central Election Committee waived the rule requiring residence in a district for this election, no doubt in order to boost vote totals in the empty land. During election day morning it was difficult to follow the election’s #Seçki2024 hashtag as it almost exclusively consisted of various people sharing that same video of Aliyev. 

A few brave local activists documented their attempts to monitor the proceedings against the odds. They documented examples of their fellow independent observers being removed from precincts by police, and reported the intimidation they faced.

Among the many recorded abuses today, officials who are supposed to work in election precincts were recorded stuffing ballots. 

In what became the most memorable scenes of the day, videos showed the same people voting at multiple precincts. 

This is one of the most common forms of voter fraud, known as carousel voting. Videos of voters casting multiple ballots were also common. 

Apparently the fraud was so blatant even the Turkish media was embarrassed… 

While a fair amount of election analysis pointed out the fact that President Aliyev has some actual popularity at home thanks to his ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, this activist instead described it as Azerbaijanis being “trapped in a chronic illness… resign[ed] to coexist with their affliction, unable to envision a future beyond its grasp.” 

As the polling approached its end, bot armies were out in full force on Twitter posting the same exact videos repeatedly with identical texts claiming there’s been great enthusiasm and a large turnout. There appears to be a deep preoccupation with the notion that the Azerbaijani public turned out in droves to vote for their militarily victorious leader and that his popularity is wildly questionable. 

Remember the “specially invited” observers mentioned earlier? Despite the exposure of the Azerbaijani Laundromat bribery scheme, Azerbaijan still has “friendship groups” in many international parliaments. Many of them are on the ground in Baku with a role to play, and as we go to press after polls closed these friends of Aliyev have been issuing statements for the Azerbaijani press on what a free, fair, and wildly successful election it has been. For example Moldovan Member of Parliament Vitalie Jacot featured above is the head of the Moldova-Azerbaijan parliamentary friendship group, while Alberto Villa Villegas fills that role in Mexico. 

The man contracted by Azerbaijan for its exit poll was none other than a notorious “pollster to the strongmen,” whose clients include Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Hugarian PM Viktor Orban. Perhaps the only matter of suspense in this entire election has been whether Aliyev will beat his personal best record of 89% of the vote in 2008. The propaganda seems to be setting such a stage, and with the exit poll forecasting he got 93.9%, it looks like he may just do it. (Though described as an exit poll, it was actually conducted weeks prior to the election). 

Aliyev doesn’t just have European friends on the ground in Baku but in the highest seats of power as well. Within hours of the polls closing, and before official results have been announced, Aliyev already received a call of congratulations from the above-mentioned Prime Minister Orban on his victory. Aliyev and Orban’s relationship is beyond notorious, dating back to Orban’s infamous extradition of the axe-murderer Ramil Safarov who was then welcomed back to Azerbaijan as a hero. In one of those twists of fate which really makes you go “hmm,” only hours prior to Orban’s call to Aliyev, he had met in his office with Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan as part of a fence-mending visit to repair Armenia and Hungary’s long-broken ties since the Safarov affair. Hungary has played a consistent pro-Azerbaijani role from within the European Union over the past few years, stymying statements and offers of support to Armenia after Azerbaijan’s attacks on it and Nagorno-Karabakh. 

A few videos have gone up from the typical state propagandists to send the message that Azerbaijanis are really excited about this victory. 

Despite everything, some activists called on their compatriots to not be discouraged by the election’s inevitable result. As one said, “[Aliyev] could not try to get a mandate from the people when he was the winner of the war. He ended the peroid when his popularity was strongest with a dead election. No matter how popular they are, this situation demonstrates that [their] power is lax.” Said another, “I think there is no need to be disappointed. They ended an election they could have won with full transparency with fraud and minimal activism. Fear is a bad thing.”

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