The New Great Game Round-Up #24

The Great Game Round-Up brings you the latest newsworthy developments regarding Central Asia and the Caucasus region. We document the struggle for influence, power, hegemony and profits between a U.S.-dominated NATO, its GCC proxies, Russia, China and other regional players.

This week's presidential elections in Azerbaijan ended with the expected result. Incumbent President Ilham Aliyev was officialy reelected, winning almost 85 percent of the vote. Few would have mentioned the fraudulent elections and the crackdown of the Aliyev regime on the opposition if the Azerbaijani authorities had not committed a blunder [emphasis mine]:

Oops: Azerbaijan released election results before voting had even started

Even still, one expects a certain ritual in these sorts of authoritarian elections, a fealty to at least the appearance of democracy, if not democracy itself. So it was a bit awkward when Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results – a full day before voting had even started.

© Photo AP/Sergei Grits

So even Aliyev's close allies in Washington were forced to back the observations made by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Unimpressed by the Azerbaijani version of democracy, monitors of the pan-European rights watchdog criticized “serious” and “overwhelming” violations during the elections:

Observers Find Violations at 'All Stages' of Azerbaijan Elections

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe identified voter intimidation, a restrictive media environment during the election campaign and violations at all stages of the voting process in a preliminary report on the elections released Thursday.

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