The validity of the election has been called into doubt by international monitors, and opposition leaders, while Commonwealth of Independent States monitors and the country's Central Election Commission deny allegations of violations.
Ali Kerimli, the chairman of the Popular Front, disputed the results, and urged the international community to support the opposition. In a move reminiscent of the "orange revolution" in Ukraine, he said "peaceful, constitutional resistance to this falsification" would start on November 8.
Vladimir Rushailo, the head of the Commonwealth of Independent States' (CIS) observer mission to Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections said there were no major violations at the polls, calling such allegations "the card played by losers," and denied charges that the CIS observer mission was politically motivated: "We have no personal contacts, links or sympathy [with candidates or parties]. We reported what we saw. When we saw falsification we reported it," he said.
Alcee Hastings, the head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) monitoring group said the parliamentary elections failed to meet international norms and democratic standards.
Hastings noted flaws in the voter registration and vote counting processes, and said that despite Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev's pledge to take measures to ensure transparency and honesty in the elections, local authorities did not follow through on the day of the elections.
Leo Platvoet, who led a pre-election delegation to Azerbaijan from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said that, unfortunately, good intentions had met with bad practice.
Fuad Dzavadov, a member of the Azerbaijani Central Election Committee, said he did not know how the OSCE monitoring group had reached this conclusion, and denied accusations of major violations in the elections.
Dzavadov also said he would have to see the ballots himself before making any conclusions on a statement by the head of the PACE delegation, calling 43% of the ballots invalid.
Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission said turnout was 46.83%, or over 2 million voters from the 4.6 million registered for the election.
