I was an independent observer at the election into the National Assembly (Milli Məclis), Azerbaijan's unicameral parliament, that took place on 1 September 2024. By all means, it was a typical Azeri election - ballot stuffing, carousels, dead people voting, and foreign observers claiming the election was transparent and fair ad nauseam. Anyone interested in the Caucasus's politics is aware of this charade. Yet reading about it, or watching it online is completely different from witnessing it first-hand.
At the time of the election, I was 19 years old. The first election I voted in was the presidential election that took place earlier that year in February. My friend Cavid Ağa aptly described it as Azerbaijan's most boring election ever (https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-azerbaijans-boringest-election-campaign-ever). And similarly, this one was quite dull and unimportant. Whereas turnout in presidential elections is typically sizeable, almost no one goes to parliamentary elections, which are seen as a pointless formality that can't bring about real change. Nonetheless, I decided to partake in this election as an observer partly because I didn't manage to observe the presidential election, and also since I agreed to be an observer for a real opposition candidate - Natiq Cəfərli.
I can say for sure that this experience has radicalized me, for it was a complete exposé of Azerbaijan's vote falsification system. Cəfərli, originally from Georgia, was running for the 33rd Xətai electoral district - a part of Baku where I lived in for all of my life. It was a scorchingly hot day at the tail end of summer as the temperature reached 35 degrees Celsius by noon. In spite of the heat, I was eager to experience the election. I arrived at the polling station located in a local chess club at 07:00. The election was to start at 08:00 and last until 19:00.
Voting at the 18th polling station was promptly marred by irregularities, and from the hands of the polling station's "boss" no less - the director of the chess club, 35-year old İradə Namazova. Shortly after other observers and I arrived to the station, we saw her cut corners of four ballots, which was a violation of election law; corners can only be cut if the ballot is given to a voter. It's to indicate that the ballot was used. I immediately protested against her act with the other observers. She apologized and said that the cut ballots will be given to voters first.
The rest of the day went without further violations; though turnout was abysmally low as I could count the amount of voters who came to the station before noon on my hands. Meanwhile, I got to know the other observers which represented other candidates - all independents. My candidate Cəfərli was deputy chairman of the Republican Alternative (ReAl) party, perhaps the most anti-government "systemic opposition" party in Azerbaijan. Even though some partisan observers didn't mind fraud if it benefited their candidates, we all agreed to make sure that our common rival - pro-government candidate Zahid Oruc - did not steal the election.
In the afternoon, a bunch of people from the Naxçıvan Autonomous Republic came to vote with their temporary Xətai district residence permits. Initially I didn't see any mischief here, since I didn't know that they could only vote from the district of their permanent residence unless they had an explicit permit by the Central Electoral Committee to vote in another district. However, as voter after voter from Naxçıvan came to cast their ballots, it was painfully obvious that we were witnessing carousel voting - a group of people who traversed different polling stations to vote in them. When the carousel voters first came, Fuad Abbasov, a candidate and a journalist by profession, ambushed the carousel voters and filmed them engaging in electoral fraud. After a few hours, another candidate Gülnar Xəlilova confronted a different group of carousel voters:
"Why won't you let me vote? Maybe I'll vote for you!" - said one of the carousel voters.
"I don't need your vote!" - replied Xəlilova.
Atta girl! Her willingness to confront brazen fraud and the strength of her voice raised my hopes a tad.
Past 17:00 almost no one came to vote; I counted only four people. Around this time I saw all of the chess club's staff disappear. I was told by fellow observers that they were present in the station in the case us, actual observers, protested. They must have been bored out of their minds due to the low turnout. While waiting for the election to finally end, a member of the polling station committee Ziyəddin Allahverdiyev, a refugee from Armenia and auditor at the International Bank of Azerbaijan approached us and said that since the 25% minimum turnout threshold was not met, we should go home. His demand was completely unreasonable, since the quorum applied only to referendums, and there was no way he wasn't aware of this. He most likely just tried to kick us out.
The station finally closed at 19:00. As soon as the station closed, the opposite corner of the unused ballots had to be cut and then stamped. Cutting all of them was a Herculean task, since out of 1471 ballots, only 57 were used. I filmed the whole process to have proof in case of fraud, and after we were done cutting corners (no pun intended), the station master had to write a protocol that would be sent to the Central Electoral Committee - how many voters were registered, how many of them voted, for whom they voted, etc. The polling station secretary Nigar Vahabzadə told us she would first write a draft of the protocol, which would later be copied by the station master. She wanted to get it right because if a small error happened on official paperwork, it would be disastrous. The other observers and I told her we didn't mind.
Then it was time to open the ballot boxes and count the votes. There were six ineligible ballots, so six people protested the election. The pro-government candidate Oruc received only 10 votes, while my candidate Cəfərli received 24, the most of any candidate at our polling station. Even though Oruc failed to win, most observers left the station after they realized their candidates wouldn’t win. They went home without asking to look at the final protocol. This is when everything went to shit.
‘I have a headache, I can’t write the protocol yet’, polling station master İradə Namazova proclaimed. ‘Let me sort out the chess stuff first’. All the committee began to clean up the voting station, saying club would be coming in tomorrow. I didn't mind it and waited with the two remaining observers.
The protocol didn’t come.
I was becoming increasingly infuriated and impatient, since it was already 20:30 by the time the protocol was being written. In spite of my protests, the committee forced me out of the room and began to write the protocol. My candidate Natiq Cəfərli came to my defense and demanded our right to observe the protocol's writing. Yet the experienced İradə Namazova had one ace up her sleeve; she said she couldn't find the stamp for the protocol. The committee dropped everything and started to ‘search’ for it. Ultimately, it was never found. I had to leave the station at 21:15 after my candidate asked me to go home with a pensive look at his face. According to other observers, seven other voting stations in the 33rd Xətai electoral district suffered similar events — protocols not shown to observers, and transcripts not given when asked for.
The next day, when I read the Central Election Committee’s results, I was utterly baffled. According to them, out of 1471 registered voters, 251 arrived to vote and 141 of them voted for the pro-government candidate Zahid Oruc. But according to all the observers and my very own eyes, there couldn't have been more voters than 57! Guess they found that fucking stamp after I left.
Anyway, me, Сəfərli and his party wanted to go to court to annul the results using our own evidence, specifically our own transcript of the real protocol that showed Oruc did NOT win the vote. Even if he did, only 4% of the polling station's voters actually turned up to vote. Unfortunately, my parents got worried that I may be subject to repressions by Azerbaijan's government, especially in the context of far-reaching crackdowns that started in November 2023 (https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/22/azerbaijan-crackdown-independent-media), so I decided to not join ReAl in their litigation against the fraudulent election results.
This was a turning point in my life. Never before have I been so overtaken by sheer anger. Online videos of electoral fraud and other bloopers of the government were babyshit compared to sitting in a hot polling station for almost 12 hours, painstakingly ensuring that the vote wasn't rigged, only for my work to be rendered completely meaningless in the span of a few minutes. I became committed to involving myself in the electoral process since then. I learned how the Azeri government falsifies elections, and I was planning to use my experience to more effectively stop vote fraud in the future. Unfortunately, the government knew of my protests against the station committee, so I was not allowed to observe the even more moribund municipal elections in January 2025.
At the end of the day, I didn't lose my hope or fall into the abyss of hatred. I feel quite enlightened, conscious; some might say even "woke". I'm still proud of standing up for hours of my labor, and for standing up for complete strangers that day.
At the time of the election, I was 19 years old. The first election I voted in was the presidential election that took place earlier that year in February. My friend Cavid Ağa aptly described it as Azerbaijan's most boring election ever (https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-azerbaijans-boringest-election-campaign-ever). And similarly, this one was quite dull and unimportant. Whereas turnout in presidential elections is typically sizeable, almost no one goes to parliamentary elections, which are seen as a pointless formality that can't bring about real change. Nonetheless, I decided to partake in this election as an observer partly because I didn't manage to observe the presidential election, and also since I agreed to be an observer for a real opposition candidate - Natiq Cəfərli.
I can say for sure that this experience has radicalized me, for it was a complete exposé of Azerbaijan's vote falsification system. Cəfərli, originally from Georgia, was running for the 33rd Xətai electoral district - a part of Baku where I lived in for all of my life. It was a scorchingly hot day at the tail end of summer as the temperature reached 35 degrees Celsius by noon. In spite of the heat, I was eager to experience the election. I arrived at the polling station located in a local chess club at 07:00. The election was to start at 08:00 and last until 19:00.
Voting at the 18th polling station was promptly marred by irregularities, and from the hands of the polling station's "boss" no less - the director of the chess club, 35-year old İradə Namazova. Shortly after other observers and I arrived to the station, we saw her cut corners of four ballots, which was a violation of election law; corners can only be cut if the ballot is given to a voter. It's to indicate that the ballot was used. I immediately protested against her act with the other observers. She apologized and said that the cut ballots will be given to voters first.
The rest of the day went without further violations; though turnout was abysmally low as I could count the amount of voters who came to the station before noon on my hands. Meanwhile, I got to know the other observers which represented other candidates - all independents. My candidate Cəfərli was deputy chairman of the Republican Alternative (ReAl) party, perhaps the most anti-government "systemic opposition" party in Azerbaijan. Even though some partisan observers didn't mind fraud if it benefited their candidates, we all agreed to make sure that our common rival - pro-government candidate Zahid Oruc - did not steal the election.
In the afternoon, a bunch of people from the Naxçıvan Autonomous Republic came to vote with their temporary Xətai district residence permits. Initially I didn't see any mischief here, since I didn't know that they could only vote from the district of their permanent residence unless they had an explicit permit by the Central Electoral Committee to vote in another district. However, as voter after voter from Naxçıvan came to cast their ballots, it was painfully obvious that we were witnessing carousel voting - a group of people who traversed different polling stations to vote in them. When the carousel voters first came, Fuad Abbasov, a candidate and a journalist by profession, ambushed the carousel voters and filmed them engaging in electoral fraud. After a few hours, another candidate Gülnar Xəlilova confronted a different group of carousel voters:
"Why won't you let me vote? Maybe I'll vote for you!" - said one of the carousel voters.
"I don't need your vote!" - replied Xəlilova.
Atta girl! Her willingness to confront brazen fraud and the strength of her voice raised my hopes a tad.
Past 17:00 almost no one came to vote; I counted only four people. Around this time I saw all of the chess club's staff disappear. I was told by fellow observers that they were present in the station in the case us, actual observers, protested. They must have been bored out of their minds due to the low turnout. While waiting for the election to finally end, a member of the polling station committee Ziyəddin Allahverdiyev, a refugee from Armenia and auditor at the International Bank of Azerbaijan approached us and said that since the 25% minimum turnout threshold was not met, we should go home. His demand was completely unreasonable, since the quorum applied only to referendums, and there was no way he wasn't aware of this. He most likely just tried to kick us out.
The station finally closed at 19:00. As soon as the station closed, the opposite corner of the unused ballots had to be cut and then stamped. Cutting all of them was a Herculean task, since out of 1471 ballots, only 57 were used. I filmed the whole process to have proof in case of fraud, and after we were done cutting corners (no pun intended), the station master had to write a protocol that would be sent to the Central Electoral Committee - how many voters were registered, how many of them voted, for whom they voted, etc. The polling station secretary Nigar Vahabzadə told us she would first write a draft of the protocol, which would later be copied by the station master. She wanted to get it right because if a small error happened on official paperwork, it would be disastrous. The other observers and I told her we didn't mind.
Then it was time to open the ballot boxes and count the votes. There were six ineligible ballots, so six people protested the election. The pro-government candidate Oruc received only 10 votes, while my candidate Cəfərli received 24, the most of any candidate at our polling station. Even though Oruc failed to win, most observers left the station after they realized their candidates wouldn’t win. They went home without asking to look at the final protocol. This is when everything went to shit.
‘I have a headache, I can’t write the protocol yet’, polling station master İradə Namazova proclaimed. ‘Let me sort out the chess stuff first’. All the committee began to clean up the voting station, saying club would be coming in tomorrow. I didn't mind it and waited with the two remaining observers.
The protocol didn’t come.
I was becoming increasingly infuriated and impatient, since it was already 20:30 by the time the protocol was being written. In spite of my protests, the committee forced me out of the room and began to write the protocol. My candidate Natiq Cəfərli came to my defense and demanded our right to observe the protocol's writing. Yet the experienced İradə Namazova had one ace up her sleeve; she said she couldn't find the stamp for the protocol. The committee dropped everything and started to ‘search’ for it. Ultimately, it was never found. I had to leave the station at 21:15 after my candidate asked me to go home with a pensive look at his face. According to other observers, seven other voting stations in the 33rd Xətai electoral district suffered similar events — protocols not shown to observers, and transcripts not given when asked for.
The next day, when I read the Central Election Committee’s results, I was utterly baffled. According to them, out of 1471 registered voters, 251 arrived to vote and 141 of them voted for the pro-government candidate Zahid Oruc. But according to all the observers and my very own eyes, there couldn't have been more voters than 57! Guess they found that fucking stamp after I left.
Anyway, me, Сəfərli and his party wanted to go to court to annul the results using our own evidence, specifically our own transcript of the real protocol that showed Oruc did NOT win the vote. Even if he did, only 4% of the polling station's voters actually turned up to vote. Unfortunately, my parents got worried that I may be subject to repressions by Azerbaijan's government, especially in the context of far-reaching crackdowns that started in November 2023 (https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/22/azerbaijan-crackdown-independent-media), so I decided to not join ReAl in their litigation against the fraudulent election results.
This was a turning point in my life. Never before have I been so overtaken by sheer anger. Online videos of electoral fraud and other bloopers of the government were babyshit compared to sitting in a hot polling station for almost 12 hours, painstakingly ensuring that the vote wasn't rigged, only for my work to be rendered completely meaningless in the span of a few minutes. I became committed to involving myself in the electoral process since then. I learned how the Azeri government falsifies elections, and I was planning to use my experience to more effectively stop vote fraud in the future. Unfortunately, the government knew of my protests against the station committee, so I was not allowed to observe the even more moribund municipal elections in January 2025.
At the end of the day, I didn't lose my hope or fall into the abyss of hatred. I feel quite enlightened, conscious; some might say even "woke". I'm still proud of standing up for hours of my labor, and for standing up for complete strangers that day.
Last edited 2026/07/26(Sun) 11:58:12
