The Azerbaijani public broadcaster is looking to understand why its jury votes were not accepted for the Grand Final of Eurovision 2022.
The Azerbaijani jury is one of six juries to have been removed from voting in the contest after irregularities were found in the voting for Semi-Final Two. During the contest a press release from the EBU was released stating:
In the analysis of jury voting by the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) pan-European voting partner after the Second Dress Rehearsal of the Second Semi-Final of the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest, certain irregular voting patterns were identified in the results of six countries.
In order to comply with the Contest’s Voting Instructions, the EBU worked with its voting partner to calculate a substitute aggregated result for each country concerned for both the Second-Semi Final and the Grand Final (calculated based on the results of other countries with similar voting records).
İctimai Television has revealed that its jury had awarded 12 points to Ukraine, in the replacement votes Ukraine was awarded 6 points by Azerbaijan.
Immediately following the contest on “Sabaha saxlamayaq” Narmin Salmanova who was due to be the Azeri spokesperson said she was surprised to see results that did not align with those she was due to present. Narmin did not announce the results with Martin Österdahl, Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest announcing Azerbaijan’s points instead. The Head of the “Sabaha saxlamayaq” added that:
There were no technical problems on our end. An investigation is underway on this issue, the results of which will be presented to the attention of the general public
The six countries whose jury votes were removed from the contest and replaced by the EBU with results based on previous voting patterns are reported to be: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino. İctimai Television joins the broadcasters of Montenegro, Romania and Georgia in requesting an explanation from the EBU.
Azerbaijan finished 16th in the Grand Final of Eurovision 2022 represented by Nadir Rustamli and “Fade to Black”. He scored 106 points, of which only 3 came from the televote. In the Semi-Finals, Azerbaijan became the first country to qualify without scoring a single point from the televote.
Source: 1News.az | Image source: EBU / Nathan Reinds
Azerbaijan debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008, they were represented by Elnur & Samir with the song “Day After Day”, they finished 8th in the final. In 2011 Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest represented by Ell & Nikki and their song “Running Scared”. The song scored a total of 221 points, receiving only three sets of 12 points from Malta, Russia and Turkey. In 2018 Azerbaijan failed to qualify for the final for the first time, having previously had a 100% qualification record.
