AZERBAIJAN: A VOTER TURNOUT SCHEME IN JALILABAD?

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAKU 000702 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/11/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM AJ SUBJECT: AZERBAIJAN: A VOTER TURNOUT SCHEME IN JALILABAD? REF: BAKU 701 Classified By: CDA Jason P. Hyland for reasons 1.4 b and d. ¶1. (U) In the aftermath of the November 6 parliamentary election, the GOAJ Constitutional Court invalidated the results of several precincts within constituency 69 located in Jalilabad along Azerbaijan's southern border with Iran. Citing widespread fraud in the November vote count, the Court canceled a sufficient number of precincts within constituency 69 to compel a rerun of the race on May 13. In the run-up to the May 13 election day, Poloff visited Jalilabad to assess the condition of the campaign finding that accusations of fraud, illegal voter turnout schemes and allegations of state interference were once again rife. ¶2. (C) In a May 4 meeting, the chief executive (ExCom) of Jalilabad, Taleh Garashov, told Poloff he expressly ordered his subordinates not to interfere in the May 13 rerun of parliamentary election in Constituency 69. The GOAJ Constitutional Court invalidated ConEC 69's election results because of widespread fraud in the November 6 election. Garashov assured Poloff that his role is limited to providing the infrastructure to enable a free and fair election. He added that all the candidates running had successfully conducted meetings with potential voters in the constituency. Garashov cautioned us that, after the election, sore losers would complain that administrative interference prevented a free and fair campaign and urged us not jump to premature conclusions. ¶3. (C) In a separate May 4 meeting with six of the candidates running for the seat, Mardan Ganiyev, a young opposition-leaning independent candidate alleged that the Jalilabad ExCom was supporting Musa Gasimli's campaign. Gasimli, a Baku State University professor and former opposition party member, is widely viewed as the GOAJ's preferred choice. Ganiyev accused Gasimli of running a massive, illegal voter turnout operation with the government's full support through a network of local school teachers and doctors and nurses. Gasimli conceded that he was working with the principal of a local elementary school to organize voter turnout on election day but denied that it was in any way illegal comparing it to a get-out-the-vote drive in the United States. He added that there was no evidence that the voters are committed to voting for him, since the vote was "a secret ballot, after all." Gasimli then accused Ganiyev of bribing local Muslim leaders to increase voter turnout as he alleged Ganiyev had done in the November ballot. ¶4. (C) Elections Monitoring Center (EMC) representative Azer Gulazade also told Poloff that local officials had organized a "very effective" pyramid scheme to increase voter turnout on behalf of the GOAJ's favored candidate. However, subsequent to the May 4 meeting with Poloff, OSCE/ODIHR officials in Baku were contacted by Gasimli, who claimed that the GOAJ is now using the voter turnout network to support the campaign of Fazail Ibrahimli, a former MP for the Civil Solidarity party. EMC's Gulazade reported that candidates are able to hold regular town hall meetings with voters and that the campaign period had proven largely uneventful aside from the voter turnout scheme. HYLAND