Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, 4 December / corr Trend S.Kurbanov / On 5 Dec the Turkmenistan's central election committee announced 288 candidates registered by the district committees all over the country who will ballot in Majlis (Parliament) elections for 125 MP mandates on 14 Dec.
"Openness, honesty and competition are those distinguishing features which are peculiar to all electors' meetings with candidates for MP mandates of the national parliament," according to Turkmenistan newspaper.
The elections are held through the single member constituency. One member is elected for five-year term of office from each constituency. According to a new interpretation of the law on election to parliament, adopted in autumn 2008, the latest innovation in Turkmenistan's experience was the establishment of polling stations in diplomatic representations abroad. For the first time the election stations can be organized in the detention places for prisoners. "This is a persuasive consolidation in the policy of the modern state of Turkmenistan and society of generally accepted democratic principle of presumption of innocence," according to the Turkmen President.
Foreign supervisors were invited for the elections for the first time due to the initiative of the Turkmenistan President, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. The CIS supervisors have already set up to their work. The representatives of the International Fund of Election Systems (IFES), non-profit and non-governmental organization with head office in Washington, arrived in Ashgabat to get familiarization the situation.
The Constitution specifies that MPs can inject supplements in it, to consider program on the main trends of political, economical and social development of the country, to settle issues on holding the national referendum, to appoint election in including the President of Turkmenistan and MPs, to ratify and denounce the international treaties, to change state border, to consider the issues of peace and security.
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