BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9
By Eldar Janashvili – Trend:
The high voter turnout was observed in the Azerbaijani parliamentary elections, official observer from Ukraine in the Azerbaijani parliamentary elections, Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Kreidenko said.
“Such a high voter turnout in bad weather - more than 300 people in one polling station by 11:30 (GMT+4), shows the great interest of voters in choosing worthy MPs,” Kreidenko told Trend.
Kreidenko also stressed other positive factors of the voting process.
“The work of the polling stations was launched on time,” official observer said. “The voting process is at a high level. People vote freely. Members of the election commissions are on the scene. There are no obvious violations and abuses.”
The official observer noted a big number of candidates in each constituency.
“One of the candidates is 20 year old, he is young enough, which is very bold for participating in the parliamentary elections,” Kreidenko added. “I know that there are many candidates, more than 1,300 people across the country, who want to become MPs."
In conclusion, official observer spoke about the Ukrainian parliamentary elections and the difference of the Ukrainian voting practice from Azerbaijani one. In particular, Kreidenko stressed that there are usually photographs and programs of the candidate on ballots in Ukraine.
The parliamentary elections of the sixth convocation are being held in Azerbaijan on Feb. 9.
Secretariat Information Center of the Central Election Commission (CEC) will inform about the voting process, as well as preliminary data as of 15:00, 17:00 and 19:00 (GMT+4).
Some 1,314 candidates were registered within the early parliamentary elections.
The candidacies of 246 people were nominated by 19 political parties, 1,057 were self-nominated, 11 - by initiative groups.
Twenty-one percent account for female candidates while 79 percent – male candidates.
Throughout the day, 5,573 permanent polling stations will operate in 125 constituencies of the country.
There are 5,329,460 registered voters in the country, and 340,689 internally displaced people can vote in 573 polling stations.
Some 883 international observers and 77,790 local observers are monitoring the voting process. Among the local observers, 35,152 are representatives of political parties. International observers represent 58 countries and 59 organizations.
Exit polls are conducted by AJF & Associates Inc. (US) jointly with Citizens’ Labor Rights Protection League, the Rey Monitoring Center, and the French OpinionWay Research Institute together with the “Human Rights in the XXI Century – Azerbaijan” Foundation.