US observer satisfied with conditions at Azerbaijan's parliamentary elections, voter turnout

By Trend

There were no violations during the voting of the early parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, international OSCE observer from the US Philip James told reporters, Trend reports.

"We visited many polling stations and were satisfied with the conditions, the activity of voters and the sincerity of people. We did not observe any violations during the voting process. Naturally, the overall results of the election process will be summed up by the end of the day," the observer said.

The parliamentary elections of the sixth convocation were held in Azerbaijan on Feb. 9. 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 accounted for female candidates while 79 percent – male candidates.

Throughout the day, 5,573 permanent polling stations operated in 125 constituencies of the country. There were 5,329,460 registered voters.

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

Exit polls were 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.