Gross advocates ink

The co-rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Azerbaijan, the Swiss parliamentarian Andreas Gross met with the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev. The main theme of the meeting was the issue of distribution of election certificates among population. 

Gross complained  that there were cases, when a voter received several voting certificates, while others did not receive them whatsoever. Thus the situation does not fit in the formula one person - one vote.

Gross proposed that inking should be used in order to ensure that people will vote once in fact and added that it is not a disgrace for a voter to be marked this way. “In Turkey, Albania, Macedonia, Ukraine I witnessed application of this method”, the PACE co-rapporteur said.

Talking after the meeting with Aliyev with a correspondent of ANS TV channel Gross looked optimistic since as he explained the authorities “may take a decision on use of inking at the last moment”.

«I am sure. During the conversation with the President we could comprehensively explain him the necessity of this move and tried to convince him that he should take an advantage of this opportunity”, Gross noted. 

At the same time, the co-rapporteur voiced also the opinion on the issue of the PACE’s attitude towards political forces in Azerbaijan. In his words PACE does not differ parties on the basis of them being oppositional or pro-state.

“If you show sympathy to any political force, you cannot judge impartially the situation. A commonly spread viewpoint that the West supports only the Azadlig oppositional alliance is not true”, Gross noted, stressing that “there is a pluralism of opinions in the West”.

EV