Azerbaijani ambassador comments on presidential elections

Azerbaijan held presidential elections that brought victory to the current president of the country Ilham Aliyev. The Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia, Polad Bul-Bul Ogly, spoke about how the elections proceeded at the Embassy and the Consulates on Russian territory.



"A presidential election is a very important socio-political event in any country, defining its life for the next presidential term, which in Azerbaijan is 5 years. Of course, for political scientists and experts the situation was quite clear, because people vote for stability, for prosperity, people want to live in peace, people want their children to go to school and grow up in calm circumstances," Ambassador Polad Bul-Bul Ogly told Vestnik Kavkaza. "Azerbaijan is developing very fast. There are serious programs for the modernization of the country. It is very important that new roads are being built and that the urban infrastructure is improving. This happens not only in the capital city of Baku, where Russians go to. By the way, there are 7 flights every day between Moscow and Baku. These are big aircraft, Boeings, seating 170-180 passengers each, so about 1200-1300 people fly between Moscow and Baku daily. Not only Baku, but the regional towns are also developing. As the chairman of the Foundation for Cooperation with the CIS, last year I went to the city of Qabala. Last time I had been there was in 2005, even before my appointment to Moscow. Believe me, I know my home country very well. I was really amazed by the changes that have taken place in the last 6-7 years in Qabala, in the entire region, in the city of Shaki, which is among the most ancient in Azerbaijan. Therefore, I am not surprised by the participation in the election, nor by the fact that the current president got more than 80%. It was predicted by all prognoses and expert evaluations."

"I would like to stress that the elections took place not only in Azerbaijan, but also here in Moscow, in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, where we have General Consulates," the ambassador said.

"In Moscow almost 1800 people voted, to be precise 1799 in the Embassy of Azerbaijan. More than 1000 voted in St. Petersburg. 171 voted in Yekaterinburg. In Yekaterinburg we have a new General Consulate, they did not have time to gain enough experience. There are many Azeris around there, Chelyabinsk and Tyumen are not far, but still it is not that easy to come and vote. We had a very interesting situation: our voting station opened at 8 a.m. And the voting started already at 8:03. There was a group of students from Vladimir, who came on an early morning train and were waiting for the polling station to open. People were coming from Ryazan, Kaluga, Vladimir and other cities around Moscow by buses or trains to carry out their civic duty. As an old man I was very happy to see that there were so many young people, almost all the students came. It means that the young people understand that they need to carry out their civic duty, that something depends on their vote, that they can take part in defining the destiny of their home country. This is very important. Probably, because the candidate was already chosen, the mood was very happy. An election is a very responsible event. You know, even in Moscow people do not see each other for months, but here they have a possibility to talk, to meet each other, to exchange contacts. I would say it felt like a holiday. Yesterday our committee – it consisted of 6 people – calculated the votes. At our polling station the current president got 92% of the votes cast and only 9% and a bit were given to the remaining oppositiol participants of this marathon," Polad Bul-Bul Ogly said.