Azerbaijan, Baku, 15 May / Trend corr. E.Babayev / The ruling New Azerbaijan party (NAP) stated that the issue on reduction of the election campaign term still remains on the agenda. "We will raise the issue on reduction of the election campaign term from 120 days to 45 or 60 days and term of election agitation of candidates from 60 days to 2 weeks in the meeting of Parliament," MP Aydin Mirzazade, NAP member, stated to Trend .
The project on the amendments and supplements into the Election Code of Azerbaijan was submitted to the Parliamentary Commission on Legal Policy and State Building for consideration on 14 May. The project is expected to be approved after discussions in the end of May. Project reflects increase of funds for candidates and cancellation of free agitation campaign of candidates in media. However, the project does not touch upon decrease of election campaign term.
The amendments and supplements were injected into the Election Code of Azerbaijan after the joined discussions between the Council of Europe Venice Commission and Azerbaijani government.
Mirzazade stated that the parliamentary, presidential and municipality elections are held in Azerbaijan within five years. "Allocation of four months for each election campaign means that election process will cover one of the five years. We cannot distract population from their affairs. The proposals by the ruling party were supported by other MPs as well," Mirzazade said.
Some 64 MPs present NAP in the Parliament. NAP was founded in Nakhchivan in 1992. The all-nation leader, the late ex-President Heydar Aliyev was the Party's first Chairman. President Ilham Aliyev is the current chairman of the Party, which has been in power for 14 years.
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