American company to conduct exit poll during parliamentary elections

/By AzerNews/

By Amina Nazarli

The Citizens Labor Rights Protection League of Azerbaijan and American “AJF&Associates Inc” company held a press conference in Baku in connection with the carrying out of the joint exit-poll in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The company’s Director of Operations, Joan Barnhart said that extensive and comprehensive exit-poll will be conducted during the elections scheduled for November 1.

She noted that the company already had experience in conducting exit-poll in Azerbaijan during the presidential elections in 2013.

“We also conducted a survey both prior to the presidential election in 2013 and parliamentary elections this year. The results of the surveys were disseminated at the international level,” she said.

Head of the Citizens Labor Rights Protection League Sahib Mammadov, in turn, said the exit-poll will cover 1,053 polling stations in 118 election constituencies and more than 2,000 people will be involved in the process.

Earlier, the ELS Independent Studies Center reported that will also conduct exit polls at 1,180 polling stations in 118 election constituencies during the parliamentary elections.

The ELS Independent Studies Center enjoys extensive experience in conducting exit polls and has been doing so for all elections since 2008. The ELS Independent Studies Center employs a reserve staff of 10,000 persons for this purpose.

This year, 769 candidates - the representatives of 15 political parties and one bloc of parties, representing seven parties - will compete for seats in Azerbaijan's Parliament.

To date, about 500 international observers from 27 countries have registered at the CEC for observing the election in Azerbaijan, particularly the observation missions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the International Conference of Asian Political Parties, Parliamentary Assembly of GUAM, Parliamentary Assembly of Black Sea Economic Cooperation, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking States, the parliaments of Australia, Italy, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, a delegation from the House of Lords of Great Britain, the heads of delegations of the central election commissions from different countries and other authoritative bodies.