The journalists of the 15min.lt Lithuanian information agency exposed a fraud orchestrated by Azerbaijan to take a top spot in Eurovision Song Contest.

The agency videotaped a meeting with two Russian-speaking men offering money to Lithuanians for their votes in favor of a contestant. On Sunday, May 18 morning a group of students came to the agency’s editorial office. The students said they were approached by men who offered them 20 euro each to vote multiple times for a contestant.

To investigate the matter, the 15min.lt journalists met the recruites armed with hidden cameras and dictaphones. In a mere 10 minutes, the recruiters divulged the whole “operation.” As the journalists were told, the same scheme worked in other countries. The goal was to recruit groups of 10 people to vote for Azerbaijan. Those recruited were given SIM-cards to vote as many times as possible within 15 minutes.

The recruiters confessed to having found 8-10 groups. A supervisor was assigned to every group to check the results and give the payment. To prove the above, the recruiter pulled a wad of money from his pocket, noting he could make the payment in lits.

As the man noted, the same scheme works in 15 countries, with Azeri victory costing millions.

This was the way Azerbaijan got 12 points from Lithuania at Eurovision 2013.

The full conversation with the recruiters is featured in video below.

Austria, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Ireland, Malta, Montenegro and Russia also gave Azerbaijan the highest points.

 

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/158889

 

Surely the EBU should look in to this and ban Azerbaijan from entering in the future if they are rigging votes to a large scale!

Edited May 20, 201312 yr by Jack89

The source isn't working but if true Azerbaijan should be banned for a long time

 

Shame as I liked Hold Me alot

"Hold Me" was decent, but nowhere near worthy of finishing second, so I can definitely imagine this being true. I doubt they travelled as wide as Ireland to rig their votes too though :lol:

I could believe it (four years in a row of 12s from Malta...), but this is quite weak proof. Anybody with a video camera, a handful of SIM cards and a few words of Russian could have done that video, and there's definitely been a real demand for proof like this given Azerbaijan have basically become the classic Euroloon bête noir over the last few years.

 

If there were some transaction smoking guns (like, the accounts of someone high up in the Azerbaijan Eurovision chain shown to be giving money to a systematic vote buying operation), then yeah, but as it is this isn't enough.

Even if it did happen I doubt anyone can actually implement this on a national scale.

Azerbaijan have a knack of finishing very high with average songs but they pump so much money into their stage shows that I guess their performances always stick out in people's minds. They definitely didn't deserve 2nd place though, thank god they didn't win again, we can't have them winning by default every time we have a close contest.

From escxtra:

 

The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has ordered an investigation into the country’s votes in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest final after no points were awarded to Russia.

 

According to sources from broadcaster Ictimai, viewers voting by SMS placed Dina Garipova second, and the jury also gave her strong backing. Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Russia, Polad Bulbuloglu, today said that President Aliyev had ordered an investigation and votes were being recounted. According to the ambassador:

“

 

According to this data, Russia should have received 10 points from Azerbaijan. An announcement will be made about this tonight on Azeri Public Television.

 

Camil Guliyev, the Head of Ictimai, said:

“

 

We sincerely hope that this incident, possibly initiated by certain interest groups, will not cast a shadow over the brotherly relations of the Russian and Azerbaijani peoples,” he said, without elaborating.

 

Well this is interesting...

If true it will put even further doubt over the voting of the Eurovision, also if true Azerbaijan should be banned from the competition. All that aside i do enjoy their entries and i really liked hold me, and i could see why it did so well, it was a typical Eurovision ballad with theatrics that does well.

Azerbaijan was my favorite of the night and I wanted them to win. I'm glad they didn't after reading this..

If the allegations appear to be true I want them banned from Eurovision immediately.

Edited May 21, 201312 yr by Atonement

If they did rig the votes, they would be disqualified and all those with points from them will be taken away. It's a good thing the ranking system has been introduced, the other countries points will have to be revised.

The voting procedure was a weird one, so I believe this is true.

Edited May 21, 201312 yr by MJF

It should be made obligatory for each broadcaster to publish the televoting breakdown (the EXACT figures) and the jury votes (each jury member's rankings) during the week following the Eurovision final.

Yesterday, the Eurovision organisers responded to the Azerbaijan and Russia situations with this article on Eurovision.tv here.

 

Also, this doesn't really relate to this exact topic - maybe it should be renamed "voting irregularities" but:

 

the President of Belarus is confused to why Alyona did not get 12 points from Russia, let alone none at all which is what happened. Read article from ESC Xtra.

Also, Montenegro are under the spotlight after giving Ukraine 12 points in the semi final but 0 points in the final. Read article from ESC Xtra.

YAY the UK's plan of winning again by getting every other country disqualified is finally coming into fruition. *.*

 

:lol:

Edited May 22, 201312 yr by SKOB

Montenegro's one is a little odd, but that happened with Ireland last year. San Marino gave us 12 in the semi and 0 in the final. :P

 

EDIT: It's interesting that all these SCANDALS are happening in smaller countries where it doesn't take a lot of votes to get 12 points...

I read someone earlier that Russia's foreign minister said it was unacceptable that Azerbaijan gave them 0 points and they would feel great repercussions from this.

Some people are taking this contest waaaay too serious

I read someone earlier that Russia's foreign minister said it was unacceptable that Azerbaijan gave them 0 points and they would feel great repercussions from this.

 

Really?! :lol: Oh dear...

This is all crazy. Russia and Azerbaijan get more than enough blanket support from everywhere else that they surely needn't worry about missing points from a few countries. As for the Montegrin voting, have they considered the fact that the final introduces 16 further songs that weren't in the semi? That's enough alone to factor even the 12 pointer out of the voting but perhaps a different audience were watching the semis to the final, I don't expect you need many televotes in Montenegro to contribute to points!