Azerbaijan's rulers and its opposition locked horns over Sunday's parliamentary poll yesterday with officials announcing a crushing victory for the president's party amid opposition allegations of large-scale fraud.
The ruling party took just over half the seats in the former Soviet republic's 125-seat parliament, according to preliminary results.
But Panakh Guseinov, chairman of the opposition Azadliq coalition, described the election as "the most falsified ... in the history of Azerbaijan."
"We will stage demonstrations all over the republic tomorrow [today]. It will be hard for the government to ignore them," a top Azadliq leader, Ali Kerimli, said.
Central Elections Commission chairman Mazakhir Panakhov said "the elections were conducted in a democratic atmosphere."
The ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party -- headed by President Ilham Aliyev -- and apparently confident of victory, said it had concluded there were no serious violations during the vote.
Azerbaijan has never seen an election meet international standards. There are fears of unrest in the nation -- strategic because of its location and its oil riches -- as the opposition called for nationwide protests. Police have used force to break up a number of opposition protests in the lead-up to the elections injuring and arresting scores of activists.
"The elections were not able to reflect the will of the people and were totally falsified," Kerimli, who heads Azadliq's Popular Front party said.
Though the ruling party lost some seats in the vote -- it had 74 in the current parliament elected in 2000 -- Kerimli said that pro-government independent candidates gave it near total control of the legislature. Independent candidates took some 40 seats according to official preliminary results.
An exit poll, released by the private Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research companies, which have not disclosed their funding source, said data showed Yeni Azerbaijan won 56 seats and Azadliq took 13.
Initial analysis of another exit poll funded by the US government appeared, after unexpectedly late publication, to dispute at least some of the official results.
But allegations of irregularities in the vote surfaced in the Baku district Kerimli was running in.
Members of the ruling party seized ballots in some precincts of the district and opposition observers showed a reporter unsigned protocols showing Kerimli leading at other polling stations.
International observers said on condition of anonymity that they had witnessed many irregularities during the vote.
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