26th May, 2012
Loreen – Euphoria HQ (Sweden Eurovision Song Contest 2012) – YouTubeFavourite Loreen of Sweden on Saturday won a crushing victory in the Eurovision Song Contest in the Azerbaijani capital Baku with her disco song “Euphoria”.
Loreen’s club anthem easily outscored entries from her nearest rivals from Russia, Serbia and hosts Azerbaijan to be declared winner of the contest in Baku, the local host broadcaster announced.
Contenders from Russian grannies to a sultry Swedish starlet clashed Saturday as Azerbaijan hosted a glitzy Eurovision Song Contest that it hopes will banish qualms about its questionable rights record.
Eurovision is the biggest event ever hosted by energy-rich Azerbaijan as it seeks to present a glitzy front to the world despite the intolerance of dissent and opposition under the rule of the Aliyev dynasty.
The final’s 26 acts lit up the spectacular Crystal Hall built to host the contest in barely half a year on the Caspian Sea, with an audience of some 20,000 inside the venue and 100 million television viewers.
Sweden’s entry, Loreen, a 28-year-old singer who performed an upbeat number called “Euphoria” with high-kicking dance moves and a fake snowstorm, was highly favoured to win.
Also warming hearts were Russia’s Buranovskiye Babushki, a choir of elderly women from a remote village who performed a song set to a disco beat, “Party for Everybody”, with the unusual props of a model stove and a tray.
Veteran crooner Engelbert Humperdinck opened the final representing Britain, with a ballad called “Love Will Set You Free.” A star since the 1960s, he equals the eldest of the babushki in age at 76.
In a sombre performance in a simple black suit, the singer famous for his links with Elvis Presley stood in a spotlight on stage with a dance duo and a violin player in the background.
The competition got underway with a spectacular display of Azerbaijani folk dancing and a performance by last year’s winners Ell and Nikki, whose surprise victory brought the event to Azerbaijan.
The show included the usual range of the weird and exotic including a Norwegian rapper of Iranian origin, half-naked French gymnasts and an Albanian entry with a song solely in her native language and a truly terrifying top note.
But the festive atmosphere was clouded by the detentions of dozens of opposition activists who attempted to hold several peaceful demonstrations calling for democratic freedoms in the tightly-controlled state.
The Public Chamber opposition alliance said that more than 60 protestors were detained Friday in the latest protest and a court sentenced three protesters to jail terms of five or six days.
Azerbaijan is run by strongman President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his late father Heidar Aliyev in 2003.
His wife Mehriban Aliyeva heads the organising committee and his son-in-law, Emin Agalarov, a Moscow-based businessman who also has launched a pop career, sang in a black leather jacket in a musical interlude after the voting.
Radio Liberty reported this month that a construction company in the project to build the Crystal Hall venue in a city-commissioned project had links to the Aliyev family.
The event was also far beyond the reach of ordinary Azerbaijanis, with tickets for the final starting at 160 manat ($204), half the monthly income of the average Azeri according to World Bank statistics.
With political sensitivities never far from this Eurovision, the promotional videos shown included landscapes from Nagorny Karabakh, which Armenian separatists backed by Yerevan seized from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s.
Armenia had pulled out of the contest saying it feared hostile treatment and Azerbaijan barred those who had visited Nagorny Karabakh from travelling to the contest.
Rights activists have met Loreen of Sweden to brief her on the rights situation, but she declined to comment on her views on human rights at a news conference on Thursday.
She also did not step away from the planned sequence during her performance in the final of the competition which is avowedly apolitical and where any political statement would be highly scandalous.
One of the activists to meet Loreen, Rasul Jafarov who is coordinating a Sing for Democracy campaign during Eurovision, told AFP before the final that he felt she had been intimidated into keeping quiet.
You can listen to Loreen by clicking this link: