16/10/2013 13:07
Andreas Gross: The Azerbaijani authorities won’t last long
“Failures, controversies and cruelty of the Azerbaijani authorities are so apparent that they won’t last long,” stated former Rapporteur of PACE on Azerbaijan Andreas Gross in the interview given to the Radio Liberty, Azerbaijan
Gross had observed the Azerbaijani presidential elections in Gedabei region and recorded a great number of violations. As to the question why the PACE observation mission had called the elections free and democratic despite numerous violations, Andreas Gross said that the announcement of the mission was misinterpreted: the head of the PACE mission Robert Walter had announced that the elections were free and democratic only on the 9th of October, however the presidential elections are not limited only to the day of voting.
As for Azerbaijan’s upcoming chairmanship in the Council of Europe, Andreas Gross said, “This organization currently resembles a big hospital and Azerbaijan is already in the reanimation unit”. He stressed that the situation with human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan is detrimental, while the European countries close eyes to this fact because of their energy interests; as a result western values suffer. He also expressed a belief that Azerbaijan will eventually face changes and that these changes will come from the Azerbaijani society, as given this state of affairs the Azerbaijani authorities won’t last long.
Let us remind the reader that the report by European Stability Initiative (May 2012) titled Caviar Diplomacy: How Azerbaijan Silenced the Council of Europe mentioned Andreas Gross as a person who throughout his tenure as the PACE co-rapporteur on Azerbaijan had remained impartial and criticized Azerbaijan for electoral fraud, human rights violations and lack of democracy, as a result of which he “earned” the hostile attitude of both senior and junior Aliyevs.