Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 23 / Trend V.Zhavoronkova /
The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe begun to monitor the progress of the Azerbaijani municipal elections.
Azerbaijan launched the municipal elections.
The observation mission includes Gaya Doganoglu (Turkey), Istvan Borbely (Hungary), Nigel Mermagen (UK), Dobrikov Milovanovic (Serbia) and Gudrun Mosler-Ternstrem (Austria).
Today at 08:00 voting was launched in all consequence of the country.
About 15,682 members are planned to be elected to 1,718 municipalities.
Municipal elections were held twice in 1999 and 2004.
Azerbaijan has registered about 31,000 candidates for municipal members. Candidates from 18 political parties have been registered for elections. Candidates refer to 30 political parties.
The CEC will provide information on ballots at 10:00, 12:00, 15:00, 17:00 and 19:00.
"Municipal elections have their own specificity in contrast to the presidential and parliamentary elections. There are over 1,718 different ballots and counting votes, so information from district electoral commissions cannot be provided promptly as in the presidential and parliamentary elections," Central Elections Commission (CEC) Chairman Mazahir Panakhov said earlier.
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