Election

On October 28, 2005, the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece on the elections in Azerbaijan. The article states that in a stolen 2003 elections "against blatant ballot-stuffing, then–US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage phoned new President Ilham Aliyev to praise his "strong performance at the polls" and to stress Washington’s desire "to work closely with him and with Azerbaijan in the future."" The article goes on to say that President Bush plans on being tough this time around on Azerbaijan’s anti-democratic stance. Just 2 weeks later and after the new elections (November 8, 2005,) the WSJ explains that the U.S. and international monitors including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe found that Azerbaijan performed "major irregularities and fraud". So what was the US response? Adam Ereli (U.S. State Department spokesman) points out that "the Bush administration shares a wide range of common concerns with Azerbaijan, from counterterrorism and energy security, and that the U.S. has no intention of curtailing ties with Baku because of the alleged fraud." I’m not sure why he says "alleged fraud." The US said that the election had "major irregularities and fraud." Am I missing something here? And why wouldn’t a democratic government also share US interest of counterterrorism? Is that so remarkable?