Baku, Azerbaijan, March 27
By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:
Some 84.1 percent of respondents in a survey conducted by the ELS Independent Studies Center said they will unequivocally vote for Ilham Aliyev at the April 11 presidential election in Azerbaijan.
In the run-up to the presidential election in Azerbaijan, the ELS Independent Studies Center Public Association conducted a survey of 1,580 respondents in 68 districts (excluding the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and the Armenia-occupied areas) of Azerbaijan in February-March this year to assess the socio-political and socio-economic situation in the country, electoral activity, as well as to determine the Azerbaijani population’s attitude to topical issues.
During the presentation of the survey results, Irade Yagubova, chairperson of the ELS Independent Studies Center, noted that 50.4 percent of the Azerbaijani settlements covered by the survey account for cities, 6.2 percent for townships, and 43.4 percent for villages.
She said that 49.4 percent of the respondents accounted for men and 50.6 percent for women. Some 28.7 percent of the respondents were aged 18-29 years, 22.3 percent were aged 20-29 years, 18.8 percent - 40-49 years, 16.8 percent - 50-59 years, 13.4 percent - 60 years and older, she noted.
This is while 73.3 percent of the respondents are married, 19.9 percent - single, 5.2 percent - widowers and 1.6 percent - divorced, she added.
Some 48.3 percent of the respondents had secondary education, 20.7 percent had secondary specialized education, 4.2 percent had incomplete higher education, 20.5 percent had higher education and 6.3 percent didn’t have complete secondary education, she noted.
Some 17.3 percent of the respondents worked in the public sector, 21.7 percent worked in the private sector, 15.2 percent were self-employed, 3.3 percent accounted for students, 11.3 percent accounted for non-working pensioners, 8.1 percent accounted for unemployed job seekers, and 23.1 percent accounted for housewives, she said.
Some 94.3 percent of the respondents stressed the success achieved in the state management after the presidential election of 2013, Yagubova added.
This success included safe living conditions (81.6 percent), stable political situation (78.9 percent), activity to resolve the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (44.3 percent) and others.
At the next stage, the respondents were asked questions about the policy pursued by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Some 91.4 percent of the respondents, while assessing the foreign policy conducted by Ilham Aliyev, supported it, 2.9 percent said they didn’t support it, while 3 percent abstained.
Assessing the internal policy pursued by President Ilham Aliyev, 86 percent of the respondents supported it, 6.3 percent said they didn’t support it, while 7.7 percent abstained.
Assessing the steps taken by the Azerbaijani president over the past five years to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the respondents highly appreciated this activity. Some 65.3 percent of them rated the steps taken as very successful, 23.2 percent - as successful, 6.3 percent – as unsuccessful, and 5.2 percent abstained.
Attitude to the activity of international structures involved in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for more than 25 years was unambiguous. The number of those who assessed the activity of representatives of the OSCE Minsk Group, PACE, UN as successful was only 7 percent, while 86.9 percent of the respondents deemed their activity as unsuccessful.
Six percent of the respondents found it difficult to answer the question. Some 28.3 percent of those who called this activity unsuccessful consider these structures’ attitude to the conflict’s settlement as indifferent and even pro-Armenian.
Answering the question regarding participation in the election, 66.5 percent of the respondents noted that they always participated in the election and would vote. This is while 26.1 percent of the respondents said they would probably participate in the election, 6.8 percent said they had never participated in the election and 0.6 percent abstained.
During the survey, the respondents were asked who they voted for at the presidential election in 2013 in Azerbaijan.
Some 83.3 percent of the respondents said they supported Ilham Aliyev and 1.2 percent said they supported other candidates.
This is while 8.6 percent of the respondents didn’t participate in the election for various reasons, as well as because they didn’t reach the age of 18 and 6.9 percent of the respondents abstained from answering.
Some 0.2 percent of the respondents said that they intended to vote for other candidates at the upcoming presidential election in Azerbaijan, and 9.2 percent said that they still hadn’t made a decision. This is while 6.5 percent admitted that they wouldn’t vote at all.
Thus, the results of the survey give grounds to say that today, as before, an Azerbaijani voter sees no alternative to President Ilham Aliyev, considers his activity for the past period of the presidency satisfactory and clearly wants the country to be under his leadership in the subsequent period of the presidency.