So what... [updated]

Today was an important day for Azerbaijan. Today on November 7th, Azerbaijan went to the polls to elect its new 125 member parliament for its next 5- year term. But, despite all the preparations, and expectations, fraud and violations were present all over the polling stations with multiple voting and observer intimidation being some of the most popular ones. 

Reports were coming in throughout the day of these violations but so what... None of the police officers who have pressured the observers and took them to the police stations will get any punishment. None of the official "government" sent observers will be called into questioning. 

The results were known beforehand (we all knew that YAP was going to take the majority), so let us not fool ourselves that Azerbaijan was to have some groundbreaking development and hold free and fair elections. By the time elections were over, General Secretary of the ruling YAP party, Ali Amhadov spoke eagerly of the overall election process:

'Parliamentary elections ended successfully' he said, adding, 'these elections are considered important step in development of democracy and election practice'. 

Similarly, secretary of Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission, Natiq Mammadov told RFE/RL's Azerbaijan service "the conditions created for the voters to express themselves inside and outside the constituencies have yielded results [...] We have managed to hold free, fair, and democratic elections". 

Democratic and fair may a**... I am looking forward to read OSCE's report thats scheduled for its release tomorrow (November 8th) so there will be updates to this post soon (SEE THE END OF THIS POST).

Anyway, I am adding some links on news reports on the elections both in English and Azerbaijani so feel free to share. And sorry if some of them are going to be same links.

Links in English:

• http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62326
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11705141
• http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A61DO20101107?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FworldNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+International%29&utm_content=Twitter
• http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101107/ap_on_re_eu/eu_azerbaijan_elections?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
• http://www.newsahead.com/preview/2010/11/07/azerbaijan-7-nov-2010-former-soviet-republic-holds-legislative-election/index.php

Links in Azerbaijani:

• http://www.azadliq.org/section/all_articles/562.html (general link of all articles published on Azadliq.org published today on the elections)
• http://www.azadliq.org/content/article/2213423.html
• http://www.azadliq.org/content/article/2213092.html
• http://www.azadliq.org/content/article/2213281.html

[Updated] Here I am adding links to Preliminary Findings by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly [ENG] as well as a link to the initial press release.