Oops: Azerbaijan released election results before voting had even started

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday, was anticipated to be neither free nor fair. President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. The BBC's headline for its story on the election reads "The Pre-Determined President." So expectations were pretty low.

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 daybefore voting had even started.

The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/09/oops-azerbaijan-released-election-results-before-voting-had-even-started/

[Karee 4,190]

Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday, was anticipated to be neither free nor fair. President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. The BBC's headline for its story on the election reads "The Pre-Determined President." So expectations were pretty low.

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 daybefore voting had even started.

The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/09/oops-azerbaijan-released-election-results-before-voting-had-even-started/

Lame. What kind of dictator only gets 72% of the vote? Saddam Hussein would routinely get 99+% of the vote. I guess his father didn't give him any pointers before he died.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Lame. What kind of dictator only gets 72% of the vote? Saddam Hussein would routinely get 99+% of the vote. I guess his father didn't give him any pointers before he died.

Maybe he is being humble?

[Boiler 45,670]

Nobody tell Obama!

[Not a Tailor 1,370]

Lame. What kind of dictator only gets 72% of the vote? Saddam Hussein would routinely get 99+% of the vote. I guess his father didn't give him any pointers before he died.

The kind who needs dissenters to make examples of?

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Azerbaijan's big presidential election, held on Wednesday, was anticipated to be neither free nor fair. President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. The BBC's headline for its story on the election reads "The Pre-Determined President." So expectations were pretty low.

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 daybefore voting had even started.

The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/09/oops-azerbaijan-released-election-results-before-voting-had-even-started/

Azerbaijan is one of the 15 former Soviet Republics. They were taught well.

A similar thing happened in 2004 in Ukraine which resulted in the "Orange Revolution" during which the leading Presidential challenger, Viktor Yushenko, was poisoned using some form of herbacide. Only his penchant for drinking large amounts of Vodka (in Ukraine? Who'da thunk it?) caused him to vomit on his drive home expelling enough of the poison to result in nothing more than a "pineapple face". There were protests involving millions of people (Occupy Wallstreet folks are pikers...when there is a protest in the FSU...it brings in millions!) The newly "re-elected" President, Viktor Yanukovich, agreed to a new election in which Yushenko kicked his @ss.

5 Years later Ukrainians kicked Yushenko out and re-elected Yanukovich.

What does all that mean?

During this nationwide upheaval, attempted assinations, riots of illions of people in the capital...

EVERY DAY someone put flowers on the "Memorial of Glory" for the men and women that died in World War 2 to free Ukraine and the Soviet Union from the murdering fascists! EVERY DAY the people came to give thanks that they could have a "Revolution" because the hundreds of thousands of people buried under their feet died to protect them from planned extermination

Unlike the creepy thug WE have that puts fences and guard dogs around the monuments for people that DIED so we could have the FREEDOM to protest OUR government. Instead of being thankful to the men and women that allow us to say "Screw the Government!" we close off their Memorials, we deny them payments for giving their lives in duty...

Say what you will about Azerbaijan....it does NOT get worse than what our "leader" is doing. The Ukrainians would rather shoot themselves in the head than violate the memory of people who died to save their lives.

[lostinblue 1,989]

one-sided state media coverage...... What national news coverage were they watching in the US...... MSNBC...CBS NBC or ABC, Liberal media coverage at its best.

[Karee 4,190]

The kind who needs dissenters to make examples of?

A true dictator doesn't have any dissent. Everybody loves him. In his mind anyway.

[Jacque67 7,328]

Putin has already done this several times

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

So let me get this straight.

Because Azerbaijan is former USSR, rigging elections there is cool, and it all goes back to THE Ukraine, and how people there aren't wimps (everyone else in the world sucks, obviously), and is explains PUTIN -

Putin ends all conversation, like "enuff said."

Is that right?

[Teddy B 17,252]

So let me get this straight.

Because Azerbaijan is former USSR, rigging elections there is cool, and it all goes back to THE Ukraine, and how people there aren't wimps (everyone else in the world sucks, obviously), and is explains PUTIN -

Putin ends all conversation, like "enuff said."

Is that right?

Putin is the new Chuck Norris.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Putin's tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Oh wait... I do believe there is a pic of him crying somewhere... drat...

I saw Chuck Norris fight Bruce Lee or someone a while ago. His back was HAIRY! Blech. The 70's, I guess. I thought it was odd that no one was like "we need to shave these really odd shoulder patches of hair."

[Teddy B 17,252]

Putin's tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Oh wait... I do believe there is a pic of him crying somewhere... drat...

I saw Chuck Norris fight Bruce Lee or someone a while ago. His back was HAIRY! Blech. The 70's, I guess. I thought it was odd that no one was like "we need to shave these really odd shoulder patches of hair."

Hair on men was in back then, there was no such thing as manscaping. Most women had hair in all the usual places too.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Hair on men was in back then, there was no such thing as manscaping. Most women had hair in all the usual places too.

But even just random neck hair that goes onto shoulders in a great big patch and then stops? Sort of like Austin Powers, but on his back. If it was hairy all over, I could see it, but it was so uneven.

[Teddy B 17,252]

But even just random neck hair that goes onto shoulders in a great big patch and then stops? Sort of like Austin Powers, but on his back. If it was hairy all over, I could see it, but it was so uneven.

Some men/people are much hairier than others. We've got a guy that works in our shop here who has as much hair all over his body as Sasquatch. It is pretty gross, he knows it, but there isn't much he can do about it I guess. He never wears shorts or takes his shirt off. His eyebrows are like Simon Bar Sinister's.