Azerbaijan, Baku, 15 August / Trend corr. E.Babayev / Azerbaijani opposition Umid party has collected 40,000 electorates' signatures required to register a contender. "At present, experts work over collected signatures and the documents will be submitted to the Central Election Commission (CEC) soon," Igbal Agazade, a presidential contender from Umid party, told Trend on 15 August.
Azerbaijan will host the presidential elections on 15 October 2008. At present, there are 14 presidential contenders. Gulamhuseyn Alibeyli, ex-chairman of the Supreme Assembly of Popular Front Party, Teymur Guliyev, advisor of the Madaniyyat newspaper, and Suleyman Guliyev, chief editor of the Expertise newspaper, have recently submitted their documents to CEC.
So far, CEC has approved the candidatures of the governing New Azerbaijan Party (NAP) current President Ilham Aliyev, Muasir Musavat - Hafiz Hajiyev, Umid party - Igbal Agazade, Azerbaijan Liberal Democratic Party - Fuad Aliyev and the Greens Party - Mais Gulaliyev, Yashar Ahmadov - jobless, Alimukhtar Akbarov -pensioner, Sevinj Guliyeva - hospital attendant in the Central Clinical Hospital in Sumgayit, Vugar Seyidov -physician, Gudrat Isagov - leading science employee in the Physics Institute under the National Academy of Science of Azerbaijan (NASA).
The correspondent can be contacted at:: [email protected]