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By Armen Minasyan

Discussing the presidential elections held in Azerbaijan on October 9 from the standpoint of their legality, as well as legitimacy, is at least naïve. To understand this, one only has to follow online the voting process in separate precincts at the Central Electoral Committee of the country. Thus, the video footage aired online made it visible that in certain precincts only eight people voted within three hours (12:00-15:00), while the indicators at the precinct, according to the same online statistics, were increasing with an incredible speed.  

We have already reported how the Azerbaijanis ensured voter participation with the help of Microsoft Excel software: for instance, in all the precincts of No 1 polling station in Nakhichevan the voter participation by 10.00am was 23%, by 12.00am - 37%, by 15:00pm – 57%, by 17:00pm – 72% and by 19:00pm - 83%. In other polling stations the numbers are slightly different, but the logic is the same. The differences in numbers between certain polling stations were so minuscule and the distribution was so perfect that those who love the “last digit test” could be amazed by the scene. Thus, I suggest instead of discussing the legality of the elections or the technologies applied (as no technology has apparently been used except for the computer and bludgeons) to observe a number of interesting facts.  

In order to point out a number of amazing cases we suggest paying attention to the election results in Nakhichevan. For each precinct these are published on the Azerbaijani CEC website. It turns out that out of seven polling stations in Nakhichevan in all the 316 precincts the average participation index was 82.26%. At the same time in three precincts (7/50, 7/51, 7/52) 100% participation was registered. In other 286 precincts (which is 90% of all the precincts) more than 80% voter participation was registered. 

As for the distribution of votes, in Nakhichevan all the seven precincts taken together registered 90.29% of the total votes in favor of Ilham Aliyev. In four precincts (7/49, 7/50, 7/51, 7/52) Aliyev junior received 100% of the votes. Here is another remarkable fact - in 238 precincts (which is 75% of all the precincts) the votes Aliyev received range from 90% to 91% - in this case the computer apparently helped as well. In the whole Nakhichevan it was only in one of the precinct (4/11) where Ilham Aliyev received less than 80% of the votes.

The number of people with suffrage in Azerbaijan is a separate topic of discussion. As it is known, Azerbaijan has announced  that as of 13 July 2013 the number of residents in Azerbaijan was 9 590 159. According to the official statistics, 2 170 672 (22.6%) out of this are less than 14 years old, 1 754 919 (18.3%) are from 15 to 24 years old, 4 302 568 (44.9%) are from 25 to 54 years old and 601 167 (6.3%) are over 65.  

According to the official data only the number of those over 25 in the country is 5 664 568. Compared to this, the number of people from 18 to 24 years old, according to official statistics, will be about 1.2 million. This means that the number of people who have suffrage and who reside in Azerbaijan is officially 6.9 million, while in the voting lists 5.1 million people were registered. This means that either 1.8 million people are missing from the voting lists or the number of the population in that country is extremely exaggerated (the latter is more likely).

Some additional precincts were also established for the people who had left Arstakh. It is hard to say what is actually happening in those polling stations. Suffice it to observe that the results from some twenty precincts from Lachin polling station are up to now not published in the CEC website. It must be noted that in these precincts more than 95% participation was registered. In all the other cases, according to the official information, in the polling stations from 120 to 125, 74.04% participation was registered, while the number of votes Aliyev received amount to 85.67% of all the votes. 

Yet the most crucial in this whole story are the voter lists. Obviously, these precincts are established in order to register and keep mobilized those people who have left Nagorno Karabakh Republic as a result of the conflict, and also to use them or their descendants against Artsakh in the future. To put it another way, we must be certain that in this particular statistics neither Ilham nor his propagandists would "concede", not to say they actually exaggerate it far beyond realities on the ground. And what do we have at the end of the day? In all the above mentioned precincts, taken together (i.e. all electoral precincts projected in the territory of present-day Nagorno Karabakh Republic), according to official voter lists, there are 233 062 people all in all. As we stand in the year of 2013, those born in or before 1994 (the year when the ceasefire agreement was signed among Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, and no refugee could appear afterwards) have now long passed their 18th anniversaries and successfully received suffrage. This brings us to a final argument, that the number of all the people who have ever lived in the present-day Nagorno Karabakh Republic, is exactly 233 062, all of whom now appear in the voter lists. Obviously, this number has a tendency of decline due to natural reasons, and it remains to rest astonished, why in Baku the official propaganda still speaks of the “one million refugees” while according to their own official data the numbers are at least five times less.