Editor's note: Photos added
Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 7 /Trend/
Azerbaijan has today launched the parliamentary elections at 08:00 local time.
The Azerbaijani Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that 690 candidates will struggle in the elections.
Parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan are held by the majority system in 125 constituencies. Previous parliamentary elections were held in November 2005.
The CEC states that information about the voters' turnout will be delivered five times and voting results few hours later ending of the voting process to the CEC and its website via Automated Information System network.
Totally 46,639 local observers were registered for the parliamentary elections. 3,466 observers were registered at the CEC and 102 of them are from the political parties, 560 from the non-governmental organizations, three - on the initiative of the registered candidates and others - on the personal initiative. 43,173 of the local observers were accredited at the electoral district commissions to observe voting process in certain constituencies.
To date, 1,029 observers from 21 international (foreign) organizations, including PACE, Council of European Union, EU representation in Baku, European Parliament, TurkPA, OSCE PA, OSCE/ODIHR, CIS, GUAM, embassies of the US, UK, Kazakhstan, Norway, Bulgaria, Poland, Japan and Belgium, as well as European Election Monitoring Academy, were accredited at the CEC. There are citizens of 48 countries among the international observers.
Some 43 foreign journalists from nearly 20 foreign media organizations, including Reuters, BBC, Al-Jazeera, TRT, Associated Press, France Press, EPA, Anatolian news agency, Ihlas news agency (IHA), Dogan news agency (DHA), Daily Ettehad were also accredited at the CEC.
500 polling stations were equipped with web-cameras for online watching the voting process via Internet. According to the Electoral Code, ELS Independent Research Center was registered at CEC for conducting exit-poll on the voting day.
The CEC will use invisible ink and ultraviolet detectors (lamps) to ensure transparency in the election
The voting will be stopped at 19:00 local time.
