Azerbaijan prepares for parliamentary elections

There are less than two weeks left before the parliamentary elections in
Azerbaijan. The pre-election campaign is going on; the observers November are arriving in the republic. It is a quiet campaign, theThere are less than two weeks left before the parliamentary elections in checking every detail of the preparations for the election on the 7th of observers of the CIS mission noted.  According to the head of the mission, Vladimir Garkun, all the parties in Azerbaijan were informed about the mission. The mission will publish the results of the observation election campaign in the country.

Two groups of CIS observers - a short-term one and a long-term one - will arrive in Azerbaijan. They will monitor the pre-election campaign and the elections themselves.  Part of the observers will work in Baku, the others - in the regions, the Executive Committee of the CIS reported.  The executive secretary of the CIS Sergei Lebedev will arrive in Azerbaijan before the elections.  The resulting report will be published two months later.

The OSCE observers will work mostly in the same way. In total 452 observers will monitor the elections in Azerbaijan. The Central Electoral Committee of Azerbaijan accredited 51 PACE observers, 10 observers from the Turkic Parliamentary Assembly, 317 from the CIS, and 43 OSCE observers.  The authorities of Azerbaijan promised all foreign guests they would have no problems with getting visas. A special order was signed by the president, Ilham Aliyev.These elections differ from the previous ones in many aspects. All deputies will be elected in majority districts. At the moment 712 persons were registered as candidates for parliamentarians. Among the candidates the biggest amount of the candidates (111) belongs to the ruling party "Eni Azerbaijan".   They are followed by
The Musavat party - 33 candidates;
"Karabakh" - 32;
"Transformationa" - 31;
Classical people's front - 30 and so on.
There are 371 independent candidates.

To demonstrate the openness and objectivity of the election campaign in Azerbaijan the CEC gave free time on TV and free publication in the "Azerbaijan" newspaper to every party.  It was appreciated not only by the international observers, but the participants themselves.

"All poll stations are located in good places. There were no complaints about it", the chairman of the CEC Mazahir Panahov said. There are no problems in the regions damaged by flooding, he underlined.  The video cameras will be installed at 500 poll stations. "It will help to form the general picture of the elections. It is a very successful step", the CEC head added.

Yevgeny Krishtalev. Exclusively for VK.