Nakhichevan oppositionists press for cancellation of municipal elections

The Center for Democratic Development (CDD), uniting organizations of Azerbaijan opposition parties and the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, made an appeal to international organizations to do their best to put off municipal elections in the autonomy and create conditions for the opposition's participation in them. The CDD's statement on the matter reads that the Nakhichevan authorities infringe on democratic freedoms, persecute opposition activists, and use physical violence against them.

The authors of the statement call election commissions' refusal to register oppositionists as candidates for membership in municipalities a demonstration of the authorities' high-handedness in Nakhichevan. Claims against the actions of the election commissions filed with the courts have produced no result. That is why the CDD decided to boycott the elections.

The CDD also called upon the international organizations to send their representatives to the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic so that they could see at first hand how the autonomy's authorities violated democratic norms. "No region in the Caucasus has a regime more despotic than the one in Nakhichevan. And any election is out of the question until this regime is in power. We urge international organizations to protect us from the authorities' high-handedness and bring pressure on the Azerbaijan authorities with the purpose of putting off municipal elections in the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic till the local authorities create normal conditions for the holding of the elections," CDD Chairman Asaf Guliyev said to the Caucasian Knot correspondent.