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Nearly 80% of Azerbaijanis satisfied with situation in country, will vote for ruling party - US polling firm

Election 2015 Materials 14 October 2015 17:27 (UTC +04:00)
The US polling firm Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates published a pre-election poll focusing on a wide range of issues affecting Azerbaijan’s 5.1 million voters.
Nearly 80% of Azerbaijanis satisfied with situation in country, will vote for ruling party - US polling firm

Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct, 14

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva - Trend:

The US polling firm Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates published a pre-election poll focusing on a wide range of issues affecting Azerbaijan's 5.1 million voters.

"Azerbaijanis vote in parliamentary elections next month, with almost 80 percent of voters believing their nation is heading in the right direction under the present leadership and that the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains the defining issue," the US financial news website TheStreet reported, referring to the pre-election poll Oct. 14.

Asked "in general, how would you rate the job done by the current President Ilham Aliyev?", 82.1 percent said either good or excellent, said the polling firm.

This is while 77.1 percent of voters said the country is going into the right direction, while 14.7 said it is not.

Further, 41.3 percent of voters chose Nagorno-Karabakh as one of the most important issues facing the voters. Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh, along with seven surrounding districts continues to be occupied by Armenia in defiance of international resolutions calling for an immediate withdrawal.

"Five times more respondents named Nagorno-Karabakh as the most important issue facing the nation than the economy," said George Birnbaum, Executive Director of Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates.

"It remains a highly emotive issue that pervades all aspects of politics and government in ways many observers in the West simply don't understand," he added.

In terms of geo-political issues, 81.7 percent of respondents agreed that "Azerbaijan is an island of stability in a region where most countries are unstable" and importantly, given what is unfolding across Europe, 71 percent believe the present government is well-placed to prevent the immigration crisis from spilling into Azerbaijan.

More than 80 percent also believe the country's leadership, which shares intelligence with western nations on security issues, has protected the nation against acts of terror.

As of today, New Azerbaijan Party candidates are favored by 74.4 percent of decided voters, with fourteen percent remaining undecided, said the report.

This means that in the vast majority of constituencies, the New Azerbaijan Party candidates are expected do very well, according to the report.

The voters want political and economic stability; they want to be kept safe from terror; and they want their elected representatives to keep fighting for the return of Nagorno-Karabakh, said Birnbaum.

The poll, of 1,000 registered voters, was conducted face to face in 108 constituencies around Azerbaijan between September 28 and October 9.

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