CIS observers noted Azerbaijan's qualitative preparation for the presidential election, chairman of the Executive Committee - Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Sergey Lebedev, said today at the press conference of the observation mission of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly.
"The CIS mission has worked in Azerbaijan since March 20. It includes 221 observers from 8 CIS countries. Fr obvious reasons, it does not include only representatives of Armenia and Ukraine. Other countries sent their representatives of a sufficiently high level: MPs from the CIS countries, members and leaders of the Central Executive Committees, diplomats from the CIS countries, experts from the CIS countries and the CIS Executive Committee," the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza cited Sergei Lebedev as saying.
"We visited all regions of Azerbaijan and the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, and had an opportunity to get a broad picture of the process of preparations for the election and the voting process. We are grateful for the hospitality and openness of all those responsible for the electoral process, because we were provided with all necessary information. Therefore we believe that our picture is rather extensive. The estimates we made on the basis of what we saw are objective. Of course, we stated the good preparation of members of election commissions of all levels, who underwent a lot of preparatory work and training," the head of the CIS mission emphasized.
"We have seen how this is being done, how well the voting process was organized. In addition, we were pleasantly surprised by the large number of local observers: there were more than 20 people in some places. And the fact that the presidential candidates got the right to send their proxies to the sites, who had the opportunity to fully observe the voting process, certainly speaks of the openness of the elections. As a result of the observation we came to the conclusion that the election was conducted strictly in accordance with the legislation of Azerbaijan, in accordance with the Constitution and the Electoral Code, that they were open, democratic, and most importantly, they ensured the citizens' right to free expression of will," Sergey Lebedev said.
