BAKU, Azerbaijan, September. The New Azerbaijan Party secures 68 seats in the parliament, said Chairman of Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission (CEC) Mazahir Panahov, Trend reports.
As of 7:00 p.m., 2,196,771 voters had cast their ballots in Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections, Panakhov said.
He noted that 5,895 polling stations submitted their protocols to the CEC.
The voting that kicked off at 8:00 a.m. concluded at 7:00 p.m.
On June 28, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree dissolving the sixth convocation of the Azerbaijani Parliament and scheduling the extraordinary election for September 1.
Azerbaijan has 6,421,960 registered voters, including 374 who turned 18 on the election day. There are 6,478 polling stations, comprising 6,343 permanent and 135 temporary locations.
In the territories liberated from occupation, 54 permanent polling stations were set up. There are 10 electoral districts for internally displaced persons (IDPs), with 574 IDP polling stations serving 397,862 voters. More than 42,000 voters were able to cast their ballots in the liberated areas.
Exit polls are conducted at approximately 2,500 polling stations. Three international organizations are registered to carry out these polls: the Citizens' Labor Rights Protection League, together with Oracle Advisory Group (US), and the "Tereggi" Public Association for Social Research, in collaboration with the Italian SWG S.p.A. research company.
A total of 112,749 local observers have been registered, including over 65,000 representatives of political parties. There are 598 international observers from 51 organizations and 69 countries, including 227 from OSCE/ODIHR and 61 from OSCE PA.
Among the 990 registered candidates, 305 represent 25 political parties, while 371 are party members but were not nominated by their parties. In total, 676 candidates are affiliated with political parties.
Webcams have been installed at 1,000 polling stations nationwide to allow direct and continuous observation of the voting process without requiring registration.
Portable ballot boxes were used across all polling stations for the parliamentary election on September 1.