Georgian observer notes calm atmosphere at voting in parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan

By Trend

Parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan were held in calm atmosphere, Founder and Director of the Georgian Mtavari Media Center Eka Gulua told Trend.

“I have visited 7-8 polling stations since 8:00 (GMT+4),” the director said. “The atmosphere at the voting was calm, everyone was content and happy.”

In turn, Chairman of the National Congress of Georgian Azerbaijanis Ali Babayev noted that Azerbaijan’s human resources policy has recently changed significantly, young people are taking a more active part in management, and it was necessary to make changes in the composition of the parliament as well.

“So far, there haven’t been any violations either during the pre-election campaign or during the elections,” said the chairman. “We have visited about 10 polling stations.”

Since the morning, due to cold weather, there were fewer voters, but in the afternoon their number increased, Babayev added.

“There are about 15 journalists from Georgia, Georgian MPs, representatives of the Georgian Central Election Commission,” said the chairman. “For Azerbaijan, holding such democratic, transparent elections is a great victory, and this will contribute to the country’s greater prosperity.”

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.