BAKU - Opposition parties in authoritiarian Azerbaijan said Monday they would fight to allow politicians exiled by the oil-rich nation's Soviet-era regime to return and participate in a parliamentary election in November.
"The bloc will undoubtedly fight for the rights of political emigrants to participate in the coming elections," Eldar Namazov, a leader of the New Politics bloc uniting four opposition parties, told a news conference.
New Politics announced that Azerbaijan's first post-Soviet president, Ayaz Mutallibov, who is accused of attempting a coup and currently lives in Moscow, will participate in the elections if the republic's current rulers drop charges against him.
New Politics also said they would support Azerbaijan's former parliamentary speaker Rasul Guliyev, who currently resides in the United States and faces corruption charges at home, in an electoral bid.
Mutallibov, who is among many Azeri politicians living abroad and accused of high crimes, was eventually replaced as leader by Azerbaijan's Soviet-era communist party boss Heydar Aliyev after serving a short term as president from 1991 to early 1992.
Aliyev's son Ilham replaced his ailing father after a contested presidential election in 2003 that led to mass protests and clashes with police in the former Soviet Union's first dynastic succession of leaders.
Tensions between the authorities and the opposition have been rising ahead of the November vote, which outside observers say will be a test for Azerbaijan's fledgling democracy as international organizations warn that it could lead to public disorder.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has hinted that the situation in the country's media and its electoral code could jeopardize a fair vote if changes are not made quickly.
Europe's top human rights body, the Council of Europe, said in April the elections would be a fork in the road where "we may become witnesses either to fair and free elections or a bloody confrontation between thousands."
05/02/2005 13:31 GMT