Eurovision fallout: Azerbaijan orders inquiry

Every year there is some sort of fallout from the Eurovision Song Contest as nations navel-gaze at “what went wrong?”

Excuses and blame are common as various representatives answer questions from the media, usually upon their arrival back home.

This year Germany, which finished 21 of 26 countries with Cascada, is blaming the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is unpopular in some parts of Europe because of her austerity measures in exchange for rescue packages.

“There’s obviously a political situation to keep in mind – I don’t want to say ‘this was 18 points for Angela Merkel’,” said Germany’s ARD TV network coordinator Thomas Schreiber. “But we all have to be aware that it wasn’t just Cascada up there on stage (being judged) but all of Germany.”

Ireland’s Ryan Dolan, who came last, is more optimistic -noting that his song is charting in 17 countries and that the contest gave him a new platform to market his music.

“That’s the thing we can’t figure out because over the past few weeks the song has been getting great praise from all the press over here,” he said.

“They predicted we would be eighth. It has been in the Swedish charts for four weeks. I don’t know if it is because the audiences watching the Eurovision aren’t the ones buying music or what the reason is.

“I really don’t understand it but I am glad the song is doing well.”

Meanwhile Irish broadcaster RTE objected to host Petra Mede’s joke that when Johnny Logan won three times, including as composer of Linda Martin’s 1992 win, it was really Logan in drag. Swedish organisers went ahead with the gag, at Martin’s expense, who was in Malmö Arena at the time.

Elsewhere, members of the Israeli delegation said they were the targets of anti-Semitic threats as they were walking down the street.

But Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has ordered an inquiry into why his country gave Russia “nul points.”

Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Russia, Polad Bulbuloglu, disclosed that votes were being recounted after a large number of voters in Azerbaijan, submitting votes by text message, had supported the Russian entry.

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

Russia, in kind, did award 12 points to Azerbaijan’s Farid Mammadov (pictured), who came second on the night.

Meanwhile Lithuanian media has reported Russian men acting on behalf of Azerbaijan, attempting to buy votes from students given various SIM cards. A video can be seen here.

And they say Eurovision isn’t about politics….!

Source: The Independent, Mirror, BBC, Independent.