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Venice Commission’s opinion on mixed ballot papers is tendentious: Azerbaijani CEC chairman

Politics Materials 17 March 2009 13:46 (UTC +04:00)
Venice Commission’s opinion on mixed ballot papers is tendentious: Azerbaijani CEC chairman

Azerbaijan, Baku, March 17 / Trend , K.Zarbaliyeva/

The Venice Commission's opinion on preparing referendum ballot papers in a mixed way is a tendentious report, Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairman Mazahir Panahov said at a news conference on March 17.

"There is not confusion in ballot papers. This is international organizations' attitude, Thus, earlier they caviled voters' list and at present ballot papers," Panahov said.

The Council of Europe Venice Commission divulged its opinion on referendum to be held on March 16. The organization mentioned ballot papers have been prepared in a mixed way.

Azerbaijan will hold a referendum on March 18 to amend 29 Articles of the Constitution.

Azerbaijani referendum groups launched campaigning on Feb. 18. The campaign will end by 00:00 on March 16. Each referendum group has been allocated 23,000 manat to campaign.

The Azerbaijani Constitution was adopted in 1995. Amendments and additions were made in 2002.

The CEC chairman said 172 international observers will monitor the vote. As many as 2,148 of the 47,066 local observers will monitor the vote nationwide. The referendum will be covered by 20 foreign media outlets including Reuters, France-Presse, Anadolu and Ihlas news agencies, Al-Jazeera, TRT television channels, Le Figaro newspaper, EPA news agency and BBC. A total of 35 polling stations have been established in embassies abroad.

There are 125 constituencies and 5,367 polling stations in Azerbaijan. There are about 4,897,966 voters.

Panahov said eye disabled people cannot participate in the election, because it was impossible to develop their stencil, as a format of ballot papers is too big.

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