In the framework of the visit by representatives of the Russian media to Azerbaijan on the eve of the parliamentary elections on November 1st, the journalists visited the Independent Media Center 'Elections', organized by the Central Electoral Commission.
The Director General of the center, Vugar Halilov, said that it was opened in late August. The center has an independent status, its website is available in the English and Azerbaijani languages. "The site is working 24 hours a day, the specialists publish comments, news concerning the upcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan on November 1st," he said.
The correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza asked Halilov about the features of the functioning of the center. It turned out that there are only 20 journalists, all of whom are the representatives of local media. "The feature of our media center is that we are not a news aggregator, we are producing news so both Azerbaijani and foreign journalists receive all the necessary first-hand information," the Director General added.
Answering a question about the interest of Russian and foreign journalists in the upcoming elections, Vugar Halilov noted that Azerbaijan is now "in the focus of the world press." "According to the information available at the moment, around 147 observers from more than 27 public organizations will arrive in Azerbaijan. Our media monitoring shows that the foreign press pays great attention to the upcoming elections. We can even say that the Western press, as always, publish critical materials, they use these elections in order to put pressure on Azerbaijan. But their attempts will fail, of course, and they wouldn't be able to influence the elections. At the same time, it should be noted that the press of the CIS countries highlight the forthcoming elections in Azerbaijan more neutrally and do not have any information influence on the pre-election situation in Azerbaijan," Halilov stressed.
