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Azerbaijan, Baku, 31 October / Trend , corr. R.Novruzov /The Council of Europe recommends Azerbaijan to define priorities of the democratic system before choosing the election system of the country. "The country should first off all define which criteria the democratic system will meet, and then try to make the system to satisfy electorates' will completely," Sergey Kuznetsov, the Venice Commission representative, told Trend via telephone on 31 October. "Comparing of these two systems is like a compare between a house and apartment. Somebody likes house, but in any case, the availability of any of them is good," Kuznetsov said. |
Recently, representatives of pro-Governmental and opposition parties in Azerbaijan state about restoration of proportional election system during election to Parliament and municipals. The presence of the both systems will contribute in development of political parties in the country.
According to Kuznetsov, most depends on how the chosen system will be applied. It is important that the Law to reflect political movements in the country widely, which in its turn reflect interests of citizens, Kuznetsov said.
"Each system has its advantage, for example, the advantage of the majority system is that electorate knows to whom they will vote and the advantage of the proportional system is that parties have more opportunity to take places in Parliament. There are not two similar systems, even mixed systems in two different countries may differ completely," Kuznetsov added. Under the experience of the Venice Commission, all three election systems - majority, proportional and mixed, are able to reflect the will of electorates. "Everything depends on which guarantees are envisaged by the system to reflect the opinion of most citizens," Kuznetsov added.
To 2002 Azerbaijan used the mixed system. Candidates to the parliamentary elections were nominated by majority and proportional systems. In August 2002, the proportional system was canceled as a result of the referendum.
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With the majority election system, only one member of parliament is to be elected per constituency . There is absolute, relative and qualified majority system. The proportional election system is a category of election formula aiming at a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates obtain in elections and the percentage of seats they receive |
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