fbpx

EBU & ICTIMAI RESPOND TO ALLEGEDLY VOTING RIG

Lithuanian newspaper 15MIN.LT through the website of which there was a post and a video presenting two Russian “fans” getting money to vote for Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013, claimed a vote rigging by Azerbaijan.

Although there is no solid proof that the persons doing the “transaction” are members of the Azeri delegation or part of the Azeri team, the post took immediately huge media attention as Aftobladet called immediately EBU to ban Azerbaijan from the Eurovision Song Contest.

EBU REPLIES
EBU kindly replied to oikotimes.com: “Both the jury voting as well as the televoting at the Eurovision Song Contest are being observed closely by PWC, as well as by notaries in all participating countries. To process all televotes, we have been working with the company Digame for nearly ten years. Their platform is built to handle the televoting with the most professional care and systems are in place to detect any attempts of so-called power-voting, whereas people or systems would systematically vote in favor of a certain entry. Based on independent criteria, established by the EBU and Digame, and overlooked by a PWC observer, such unwanted methods of power-voting will not be counted for.”

12POINTS GOES YELLOW
On the other hand websites like 12points.tv aiming to attract some extra visitors as no one really visits them have made a transcript of translation with the video discussion. Since we don’t need all these million of visitors we proudly link to them so you can read the English translation of the story. They also don’t provide any proof that these men are members of Azeri delegation or team. On an update regaring the transcript posted by 12points.tv they “forgot” to mention that they also talk about voting Azerbaijan in the semifinal but no one thinked that Lithuania couldn’t vote in 2nd semifinal!

So could this just be a story just to accuse Azerbaijan out of jealousy? I can surely imagine a giant country making up this story! Unless they provide a solid proof that the story is valid we are currently laughing with the tabloid newspapers and websites bringing the story as a true one!

ICTIMAI REPLIES
Director General of the Public Television Jamil Guliyev has issued a statement on the fact of counting of the votes of Azerbaijani audience for Russiaโ€™s representative, APA reports quoting AzerTAc. The statement says: โ€œRussia shares common interests, human values and finally common history with Azerbaijan. Today, the cultural and artistic relations between Azerbaijan and Russia may be an example for most countries, as well as neighboring countries. Performances of the Russian creative associations with high-level vocal and acting talents attract full houses in Azerbaijan. Performances of the Azerbaijani representatives attract the Russian audience in the same way. The highest point given by the Russian audience to Azerbaijani representative in Eurovision- 2013 proves it.โ€

The statement says that the high assessment is only the demonstration of evaluation of our countryโ€™s representative by the Russian audience. โ€œAccording to the information received by the Public Television from national mobile operators, Russiaโ€™s representative Dina Garipova took the second place as a result of SMS voting and it unconditionally was to ensure high final evaluation to Russia in Azerbaijanโ€™s national voting. The national jury also gave high assessment to the performance of Russiaโ€™s representative. It causes concern that not a point went to Russia in the final count of the votes from Azerbaijan. In this respect, one can understand dissatisfaction of the public, creative persons with this fact. We share the opinion that Russiaโ€™s representative was strong and demonstrated wonderful performance.

We consider that the high assessment given by the Azerbaijani audience as a result of SMS voting, as well as the assessment of the national jury is not adequate to the declared points. We strongly believe that the incident committed by certain interested groups will not cast shadow on the brotherhood of the Russian and Azerbaijani people.โ€


CODEC News:

12 comments

  1. And what about this accusation from eurovisionista.com? Could you please respond! “I have been approached by more than one independent source who has told me that Oikotimes receives money from the Belarussian and Azeri delegations, and in the case of Belarus, has done since as far back as 2005. It has also been suggested to me from other quarters that, much like the army of Azeri ghost commenters, many of Oikotimes’s team of writers are also sockpuppets. I do not know whether this is true. But I do know that one of their writers, Olivier Vanhoutte, is definitely real – because he was also Belarus’s Head Of PR this year. This is public information. I have been told of a conversation where a Belarussian delegation member said “I don’t know why [Oikotimes] doesn’t write more about us – we’re paying them enough”.

  5. I really understand you Anthony and your comment is very interesting, but I actually am thankful that this kind of sites exist ; they’re there to remind you the things you should never do.

  7. I also have an extra comment: CAN SOMEONE from these tabloid newspapers like Aftonbladet or 15MIN.LT or tabloid sites like 12POINTS.TV provide a PROOF that this video presents AZERI delegation or team in it? I WILL BE THE FIRST TO DAMN THEM. Until then this is just a UKRAINIAN SHIT for me!

  8. Azerbaijan always does good in Eurovision since country made debut in the contest, and some “ppl” just can’t stand successes of Azerbaijan in Eurovision and makes fake things, videos to show those successes as cheat! really disgusting! but Haters gonna hate, it’s normal! Also in Azerbaijan not so many ppl takes ESC so serious to make cheats for getting good results, theres no sense!!!

  10. Once again Oikotimes have shown an utter lack of professionalism towards other Eurovision websites. Frankly I don’t understand why you feel it correct to talk down others in such a way.

Comments are closed.