CIS Executive Committee head hails Azerbaijani preparation for parliamentary polls

The CIS monitoring mission believes that Azerbaijan has created
satisfactory conditions for all political parties for the
parliamentary elections on November 7, Chairman of the CIS Executive
Committee Sergey Lebedev said, ITAR-TASS reports.

He said that there are approximately 700 candidates, each had four
minutes of free broadcasting.

Previous Azerbaijani parliamentary elections were held in November
2005. They are held using majority system with 125 electoral
districts.

Lebedev said that the monitoring mission consists of 348 people,
including deputies of national parliaments, diplomats, staff of the
Executive Committee, observers of the CIS Inter-Parliament Assembly
and the Parliament Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia.

He said that they had established monitoring headquarters in Baku on
October 18. This provides information for observers and organizes
meetings with officials of political parties.

The chairman of the Executive Committee said that the headquarters had
seen meetings with the authorities of the General Prosecution, the
Supreme Court and Azerbaijani Ministry of Interior Affairs.

The monitoring missions plans to hold a press-conference on November
8, immediately right after the elections.