BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) -- International observers, invisible ink and transparent ballot boxes were all deployed for Sunday's parliamentary vote in Azerbaijan, part of an international effort to ensure that a country that has never yet had a democratic election could finally hold a clean ballot.But opposition parties said that the uneven campaign, in which their rallies were banned and their activists beaten and detained, had already proven that the vote would be neither free nor fair.The parliamentary ballot, coming three years before the next presidential election, is a key event both for the former Soviet republic and for its Western allies, including the United States. Washington has a strong interest in seeing stability in the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation, which sits on a strategically critical axis between Russia and Iran, but it has also voiced its commitment to advancing democracy the world over.The election pits the governing New Azerbaijan Party of President Ilham Aliev against the Azadliq (Freedom) coalition, the New Policy bloc of technocrats, an array of smaller parties and independent candidates. Some 1,541 candidates are vying for places in the 125-seat parliament, or Milli Majlis, which will sit for five years.Tensions have been high in advance of the vote. In addition to the usual advantages of incumbency -- the ability to asphalt potholed roads in the run-up to the vote, for instance -- New Azerbaijan has benefited from overwhelmingly negative coverage of the opposition on state-run television, the main source of information in Azerbaijan.The Azadliq coalition, many of whose leaders have been in the opposition for more than a decade, has tried to don the colors of Ukraine's peaceful Orange Revolution.That revolution, as well as those that unseated long-standing leaders in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, have clearly rattled Aliev's government, which has vowed not to allow unrest or to let any foreign nation interfere. Opponents of the "color revolutions" have accused the United States of helping finance them."There is neither a revolutionary mood nor any international order for a revolution," Central Election Commission chairman Mazahir Panakhov told a news conference late Saturday."We must show the whole world that Azerbaijan has no alternative to free and democratic elections."With less than three weeks to go before the vote, Aliev's government announced the discovery of an alleged coup conspiracy led by Rasul Guliyev, an Azadliq leader in exile. Several government ministers and other high-ranking officials have been jailed in the alleged plot, sending tremors of fear through the opposition.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.