Journalist: Israel may learn from Azerbaijan’s experience in conducting elections

By Trend

Israel may learn from Azerbaijan’s experience in conducting elections, Editor of topical programs of the Israeli TV Channel 9 Boris Belodubrovsky told Trend on Feb. 9.

Belodubrovsky arrived in Azerbaijan together with a delegation of journalists from Israel to cover the Azerbaijani parliamentary elections.

“People come to the polling stations to fulfill their civic duty,” the editor said.

“Israel will hold elections in three weeks,” Belodubrovsky said. “In this regard, the country learns from the experience of other countries in organizing the electoral process.”

"I have noticed here interesting features which we do not have in Israel,” the editor added. “First of all, among these interesting features is an employee who marks voters’ fingers with a special liquid at the entrance. We don’t have this."

"I spoke with one person who voted here,” Belodubrovsky said. “This voter said that he is fulfilling his civic duty as well as his voting rights."

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.