OSCE observation mission's special coordinator: No pressure during parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan

By Trend

The Azerbaijani parliamentary elections are being observed by 358 OSCE representatives from 41 countries, Special Coordinator of the OSCE short-term observer mission, Ukrainian MP Arthur Gerasimov said, Trend reports on Feb. 9.

"We continue our monitoring,” Gerasimov said. “We arrived at the invitation of Azerbaijan, and this once again confirms its commitment to the OSCE principles. We previously conducted monitoring in Western and Eastern countries, in particular, in Belarus and Uzbekistan."

“Twenty observers conduct monitoring in Baku, Ganja and other cities,” the Ukrainian MP added.

"We have observers in all polling stations in Baku, and we will announce the results in the final report,” Gerasimov added. “We can’t say anything about the elections yet. The final result will be announced at a press-conference on Feb. 10. I’ll just say that our delegation was not subjected to any pressure. We are being provided with all the necessary conditions for proper observation.”

“During the day, observers will analyze all the results,” the special coordinator said.

"We visited the polling station for internally displaced people and have observed both the preparation for the elections and the process itself," Arthur Gerasimov said.

The parliamentary elections of the sixth convocation are being held in Azerbaijan on Feb. 9.

The CEC Secretariat Information Center will inform about the voting process, as well as preliminary data as of 12:00, 15:00, 17:00 and 19:00 (GMT+4).

Some 1,314 candidates were registered within the early parliamentary elections.

The candidacies of 246 people were nominated by 19 political parties, 1,057 were self-nominated, 11 - by initiative groups.

Twenty-one percent account for female candidates while 79 percent – male candidates.

Throughout the day, 5,573 permanent polling stations will operate in 125 constituencies of the country.

Some 5,329,460 voters will take part in the voting, and 340,689 internally displaced people will vote in 573 polling stations.

Some 883 international observers and 77,790 local observers are observing the voting process. Among the local observers, 35,152 are representatives of political parties. International observers represent 58 countries and 59 organizations.

Exit polls will be conducted by AJF & Associates Inc. (US) jointly with Citizens’ Labor Rights Protection League, the Rey Monitoring Center, and the French OpinionWay Research Institute together with the “Human Rights in the XXI Century – Azerbaijan” Foundation.