Oops
The CBC proves that the US isn’t the only country with ‘electoral dysfunction’: Azerbaijan announces election winner 1 day before vote
Something funny happened the day before Azerbaijan’s presidential election: The election commission announced the winner.
On Tuesday, a day before the voting began, the smartphone app of the Central Election Commission released results showing President Ilham Aliyev, whose family has been at the helm of the Caspian Sea nation for four decades, winning 73 per cent of the vote.
On Wednesday, the commission said Aliyev had won 85 per cent of the vote. His closest contender, Jamil Hasanli, trailed with six per cent, it said.
Obviously announcing the results before the election has taken place is a bit of a faux pas, but they are losing control as the ‘real’ margin is 85%, which is edging into the range of dictators. They should have stayed with their original number of 73%, which gives the opponents hope, but not much.
10 comments
Not the first time this has happened in that area. I seem to recall that results for Putin in the last Presidential election were announced before the close of voting in several districts too. Not that Putin needed to cheat to win, but it’s sort of just expected, if you don’t care enough to cheat then people in those parts start thinking you’re taking the job for granted ;).
There were some problems in Vlad’s election, like one district that reported that 125% of the voters went to the polls, but, he, like Nixon, shouldn’t have bothered, because the opposition was splintered and couldn’t come up with a consensus candidate who could have actually challenged him.
The Aliyev clan controlled Azerbaijan when it was in the Soviet Union, and have no intention of letting go of the oil wealth of the area.
Oh, nobody doubts that Vlad would have won fair and square. But hey, look. He had to cheat. He had a reputation to uphold, after all!
I’m not aware enough of Azeri politics to know whether Ilham would have won the election or not sans cheating. Too many Trashcanistans to keep track of, too little time. But I’m sure of one thing: even if his internal polls showed 90% of the public supported his re-election, he would have gone out and cheated anyhow. Hey, it’s expected. Don’t do it in that part of the world, and people start looking at ya funny. 😈
Hmm, kinda like Chicago or New Orleans politics, now that I think about it… 😆
The main difference is that guys like Edwin Edwards at least gave you a show when they rigged something and kept the death toll to a minimum 😉
Hey, Vlad gives you a show too. I’m expecting any moment now to see a puff article in the Russian press where he wrestles a bear. While bare-chested, of course. Or is that bear-chested? 🙂
Vlad’s photo ops really lack the zing of Edwards telling you he’s a crook and then proceeding to steal your socks. Now that’s Southern politics at its best. 😉
Heh. Yeah, I had an Edwin Edwards sticker on my car when David Duke was his opponent, and Duke supporters egged the car one night and managed to scrape most of the sticker off (this was an ’81 Chevy Chevette so had a real steel 5mph bumper). So I trudged on down to Edwards campaign HQ for another sticker. They gave me one, then one of his campaign workers gave me a special prize: A “Vote For The Crook, It’s Important” sticker. Which I wore on my car with pride, and yes, we did vote for the crook :).
But Edwards wouldn’t steal your socks unless you were rich. Half the infrastructure in Louisiana — the hospitals, the university buildings, the roads — were built by Edwin Edwards. He was a Chicago-style “honest corruption” type crook. Not the modern-day Republican “steal from the poor to give to the rich” reverse-Robin-Hood type crooks who run the place today. SIIIiiiiigh!
For me, one of the biggest things was he didn’t hide behind the flag or the Bible, or lie about what he intended to do – he flat told you and then did it. People got something other than bill from him. The current crew are defunding everything that helped normal people to give the money to people who don’t need it, and then tell you that they are patriotic and Christian for doing it, and you are a Godless Commie if you oppose them.
Well, the ‘patriotic Christian government’ in Florida hasn’t settled down since the fraudster in chief took office. He spends most of his time replacing department heads who have to leave to spend more time with their lawyers.
When Bill Clinton was first accused of boffing Monica Lewinsky, he called the world’s foremost expert on political sex scandals — yep, Edwin Edwards, famous for boasting that he was going to get re-elected regardless of his sex scandals unless he got caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. “Edwin, what should I do?” “Well, did you have sex with that woman?” “Yes I did.” “Well here’s how I’d handle it. I’d call a press conference and say, ‘I’ve been accused of having sex with that woman. Well yes I did, and it was good. Any questions?'”
Bill didn’t take Edwin’s advice. He should have, it would have saved the nation a lot of trouble…
It still annoys me that the Feds managed to convict Edwin Edwards of the one thing he *didn’t* do (he was a private citizen at the time he purportedly sold casino licenses to the highest briber meaning he had no power to grant those licenses) rather than for one of the many things he *did* do… and furthermore didn’t manage to do it until he was 74 years old, at which point it really didn’t matter anymore and they were just being mean to an old man. Sigh.
The Feds had been embarrassed so often by Edwards, he knew they wouldn’t give up until they convicted him of something, no matter how bogus it was. There are lobbyists in Washington who do the same thing every day, but they don’t tend to talk about it.
The man was just too honest [for a given definition of honest] and it drove the ‘moralist’ nuts.
When I read the books that Terry Pratchett has written about Moist von Lipwig [Going Postal and Making Money] I think about Edwin Edwards – the two would have gotten along famously.