Reports

This report is published at a time of Russian invasion of Ukraine. It underscores the central role of freedom of expression in the maintenance of democracy at home, as well as international order and security abroad. This report provides the analysis and conclusions on the state of freedom of expression and the work of the media in seven countries of the EU Eastern Neighborhood, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia.

In recent years, election experts observed significant increase of spending on election campaigns. The transparency of party and campaign financing became one of the key requirements to ensure the integrity of today's election processes. To raise awareness about the urgent need to increase transparency, our newest comparative study analyzes the regulation and oversight of political party and campaign financing in the EU - Eastern Partnership and Russian Federation.

In this latest EPDE report, Anton Shekhovtsov investigates how politically biased international election observers were used by Azerbaijani authorities to relativize critical findings of the International Election Observation Mission (IEOM) to the early parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.

EMDS notes that there have been cases of pressure against civil society, political activists, candidates, and their relatives in both stages of the Parliamentary elections. The government failed to demonstrate any political will to release more than 100 people who are in jail with politically motivated charges as a result of increased political repression over the last few years.

EMDS's observation of the municipal elections demonstrates that the elections were held in an environment with severe restriction of political freedoms, lack of equal and authentic opportunities for competition, and widespread violations during voting and vote-counting processes. The elections were marred with the lack of alternative choices and therefore did not adhere to the requirements of the national legislation and international standards of free and fair elections and did not represent the true will of Azerbaijani public.

EMDS believes that the authorities failed to address shortcomings of the Election Code despite the repeated calls and recommendations of domestic organizations, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and the OSCE/ODIHR. In this report, EMDS assessed the preparations to the 27 December 2019 Municipal Elections and found that: fair composition of election commissions, effective protection mechanisms of the election right, preventing illegal interference with the electoral process, improving regulations for registration of candidates and shortcomings in voter lists remain unaddressed.