The members of the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) met with the Azerbaijan Republic Presidential Elections Observation Mission of OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Vali Alibayov, the vice president from ACSDA and Ambassador Boris Frlets, the Mission head, Fransin Beri, Mission’s legal assistant and Rumen Maleyev, the analyzer on elections from OSCE/ODIHR participated in the meeting. Speaking about aims and duties of the Mission, B. Frlets stated that the Mission doesn’t concern about who will win the elections. They will only control if the election process meets OSCE’s principles. The Ambassador stated that Azerbaijan possesses a good legislation basis for holding transparent and democratic elections. The Ambassador was interested in ACSDA’s plans related to the presidential elections. He asked if the observers in regions and villages will be local or from other regions.
The ACSDA representative stated that the observers are local as usual. The ambassador appraised it and emphasized that it’s necessary to prevent local executive bodies to put pressure upon local observers.
The Ambassador also took interest on some other issues related to the further plans of ACSDA related to the forthcoming presidential elections.
The members of the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan Election Headquarters (ACSDA EH) held another meeting in OSCE Baku office. The head of the ACSDA EH Maharram Zulfugarli met with Julian Markard-Narten and Maryam Haji-Ismayilova, the senior officials of OSCE Baku office. M. Zulfugarli gave broad information about ACSDA’s activity on the sphere of civil society development, and the works realized related to forthcoming presidential elections. He also informed the OSCE officials about the election enlightenment, monitoring of the elections, exit poll and quick count operations to be realized by the EH. Besides, M. Zulfugarli talked about the results of the trainings, held in 12 regions from 15 August through 2 September, 2008.
Juliane Markard-Narten gave broad information about the works planned by OSCE Baku office related to the forthcoming presidential elections. She stressed that they are open to any cooperation related to the election monitoring and election enlightenment. The books published by both of the organizations, related to the presidential election were distributed among the attendees at the end of the meeting.

ACSDA Press Service