BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 10
By Samir Ali – Trend:
The parliamentary elections were held in terms of democracy in Azerbaijan, Member of the observation mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), Bulgarian MP Petar Kanev, said.
"This is my third visit to Baku, I arrived to participate as an observer,” Kanev added, Trend reports on Feb. 10.
“The voters were very interested in these elections despite the cold weather. I was observing the voting process in almost 40 polling stations and saw that the elections were transparent. I congratulate the Azerbaijani people on free and democratic elections."
Member of the BSEC PA observation mission, Georgian MP Ramaz Nikolaishvili also stressed that the mission members were observing the democratic elections on Feb. 9.
The parliamentary elections were held in Azerbaijan on February 9. 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 accounted for female candidates while 79 percent – male candidates.
As many as 5,426 permanent polling stations operated in 125 constituencies of the country.
Some 883 international observers and 77,790 local observers were monitoring the voting process. Among the local observers, 35,152 were representatives of political parties. International observers represented 58 countries and 59 organizations.