Azerbaijan announces election winner 1 day before vote
French senators have congratulated Azerbaijan's President on a sweeping election victory, but they could have done it one day before the vote. The French politicians, Nathalie Goulet, Mohamed Soilihi and Jean-Claude Peroni - three of dozens of international monitors in the country - were quoted by Azerbaijan state press on Thursday (10 October) as saying Wednesday's poll was free and fair. "I did not see any difference in the election processes of our countries," France's Soilihi noted. The Central Election Commission (CEC) said that with 92 percent of the vote counted, the incumbent, Ilham Aliyev, won by 85 percent, while the top opposition candidate, Jamil Hasanli, got 5 percent. For its part, the EU foreign service is waiting for the verdict of the Vienna-based watchdog, the OSCE, due at noon Brussels time on Thursday, before speaking out. But a comical mistake earlier on Tuesday by the CEC indicates the regime pre-cooked the result. The CEC contracted a firm called Happy Baku to create a phone app to publish the outcome. But when the app became available for download one day ahead of the vote, it already contained a set of results: Aliyev 73 percent and Hasanli 7 percent. Activists based in Germany, which operate the opposition cable channel Meydan TV, published screen-grabs of the data. The news quickly acquired the tag "appgate" and reached EU officials in Brussels. It also made headlines on the British state broadcaster, the BBC, on Swedish TV and in the US daily, the Washington Post. The app equally quickly went offline. The Happy Baku chief also deleted his Facebook page, Twitter account and LinkedIn page.