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Oops: Azerbaijan released election results before voting had even started
BY MAX FISHER
October 9 at 5:31 pm
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev votes in Baku on Wednesday.
Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday, was anticipated to be neither free nor fair. President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. The BBC's headline for its story on the election reads "The Pre-Determined President." So expectations were pretty low.
Even still, one expects a certain ritual in these sorts of authoritarian elections, a fealty to at least the appearance of democracy, if not democracy itself. So it was a bit awkward when Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results – a full day before voting had even started.
The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2013/10/cms-image-000000284.jpg
The Azerbaijani Central Election Commission sent out these vote totals to its official smartphone app before voting started. (meydan.tv)
In second place was opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli with 7.4 percent of the vote. Hasanli had recently appealed to the Central Election Commission for paid airtime on state TV, arguing that Aliyev gets heavy airtime and the opposition does not. He was denied.
The data were quickly recalled. The official story is that the app's developer had mistakenly sent out the 2008 election results as part of a test. But that's a bit flimsy, given that the released totals show the candidates from this week, not from 2008.
You might call this a sort of Kinsley gaffe on a national scale. (A Kinsley gaffe, named for journalist Michael Kinsley, is when a politician gets in trouble for saying something that's widely known as true but that he isn't supposed to say.) There's supposed to be a certain ritual to an election like Azerbaijan's: demonstrations are put down, reporters are harassed, opposition candidates are whittled down, supporters are ushered to the polls and then Aliyev's sweeping victory is announced. They got the order wrong here.
As of this writing, Azerbaijan's election authorities say they've counted 80 percent of the ballots, with Aliyev winning just under 85 percent of the vote so far. He's been officially reelected.
Comments:
dem4evr
10/12/2013 8:46 PM
sacha barron cohen would love this.
bigguy51
10/11/2013 2:31 PM
yeah the same thing happens hear i heard the 2012 election obama won pennsylvania even before the polls opened that morning
Senior789345
10/10/2013 10:06 PM GMT
I'm from Azerbaijan and I voted for Jamil Hasanli - the only candidate from opposition. Nearly all people I know voted for Jamil Hasanli in this elections but as you see they gave him only 5% of votes... There are witnesses and video facts proving that 2013 ELECTIONS WERE RIGGED. People hired by government officials (especially teachers from schools) were coming with ready packs of papers with votes to Ilham Aliyev and were putting them into voting boxes... People were threatened by their employers in government and were made to go and put such pack of votes into box. Commission in places knew about that and were closing their eyes to such comers... Everything is controlled by Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan. No democracy, no human rights, no free speech, corruption everywhere! Ilham Aliyev is tiran and dictator and Azerbaijan needs to get rid of him! And I'm not talking about billions he steals from Azerbaijan and makes his own business abroad, buys islands to his son and daughters... These are all facts though.
* At least Aliyev has elections (even if they're fake) and gives money to his immediate family.
The Saudis do not have elections and public money is given not just to the "King's" (Head of the Al-Saud tribe) immediate family i.e. son and daughter but whole clan or "royal family" of thousands.
BY MAX FISHER
October 9 at 5:31 pm
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev votes in Baku on Wednesday.
Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday, was anticipated to be neither free nor fair. President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. The BBC's headline for its story on the election reads "The Pre-Determined President." So expectations were pretty low.
Even still, one expects a certain ritual in these sorts of authoritarian elections, a fealty to at least the appearance of democracy, if not democracy itself. So it was a bit awkward when Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results – a full day before voting had even started.
The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2013/10/cms-image-000000284.jpg
The Azerbaijani Central Election Commission sent out these vote totals to its official smartphone app before voting started. (meydan.tv)
In second place was opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli with 7.4 percent of the vote. Hasanli had recently appealed to the Central Election Commission for paid airtime on state TV, arguing that Aliyev gets heavy airtime and the opposition does not. He was denied.
The data were quickly recalled. The official story is that the app's developer had mistakenly sent out the 2008 election results as part of a test. But that's a bit flimsy, given that the released totals show the candidates from this week, not from 2008.
You might call this a sort of Kinsley gaffe on a national scale. (A Kinsley gaffe, named for journalist Michael Kinsley, is when a politician gets in trouble for saying something that's widely known as true but that he isn't supposed to say.) There's supposed to be a certain ritual to an election like Azerbaijan's: demonstrations are put down, reporters are harassed, opposition candidates are whittled down, supporters are ushered to the polls and then Aliyev's sweeping victory is announced. They got the order wrong here.
As of this writing, Azerbaijan's election authorities say they've counted 80 percent of the ballots, with Aliyev winning just under 85 percent of the vote so far. He's been officially reelected.
Comments:
dem4evr
10/12/2013 8:46 PM
sacha barron cohen would love this.
bigguy51
10/11/2013 2:31 PM
yeah the same thing happens hear i heard the 2012 election obama won pennsylvania even before the polls opened that morning
Senior789345
10/10/2013 10:06 PM GMT
I'm from Azerbaijan and I voted for Jamil Hasanli - the only candidate from opposition. Nearly all people I know voted for Jamil Hasanli in this elections but as you see they gave him only 5% of votes... There are witnesses and video facts proving that 2013 ELECTIONS WERE RIGGED. People hired by government officials (especially teachers from schools) were coming with ready packs of papers with votes to Ilham Aliyev and were putting them into voting boxes... People were threatened by their employers in government and were made to go and put such pack of votes into box. Commission in places knew about that and were closing their eyes to such comers... Everything is controlled by Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan. No democracy, no human rights, no free speech, corruption everywhere! Ilham Aliyev is tiran and dictator and Azerbaijan needs to get rid of him! And I'm not talking about billions he steals from Azerbaijan and makes his own business abroad, buys islands to his son and daughters... These are all facts though.
* At least Aliyev has elections (even if they're fake) and gives money to his immediate family.
The Saudis do not have elections and public money is given not just to the "King's" (Head of the Al-Saud tribe) immediate family i.e. son and daughter but whole clan or "royal family" of thousands.