Armenia accuses Azerbaijan of voting manipulation

by Marcus Klier 558 views

Armenian broadcaster APT accusses the broadcaster of the neighbouring country Azerbaijan to have manipulated the voting during the final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest by obscuring the screen when the Armenian televoting number was shown. Political relations between the two countries have been tense for more than 20 years.

APT launched an official complaint to the EBU claiming a severe violation of the Eurovision Song Contest rules. Like in 2008, Azerbaijan gave no points to Armenia. However, even if Azerbaijan had given 12 points to Armenia, the country would have still finished in tenth place behind Bosnia & Herzegovina. Armenia gave one single point to the representatives from Azerbaijan, AySel & Arash, who finished third.

The EBU has stated that they cannot comment on the story yet as they have no proof of the accusations so far. However, they are investigating and will report about the outcome in the next two days.

Armenia took part in the Eurovision Song Contest for the fourth time in 2008 and achieved its fourth top ten placing in a row, although the tenth place for Inga & Anush with Nor par is still the lowest result to date.