Nearly 97 percent of polling stations report outcome of municipal voting in Azerbaijan - UPDATE

14:33

Roughly 98 percent of the district election commissions presented municipal election voting reports to the Azerbaijani Central Elections Commission (CEC).

About 1,684 municipalities have presented reports and 1, 674 have submitted protocols, the CEC said.

About 15, 249 candidates lead in them.

14:08

Nearly 97 percent of polling stations (4,668 polling stations) have reported about preliminary results of the municipal elections held in Azerbaijan on Dec. 23 to the Elections Information Center at the Central Election Commission (CEC) , CEC chairman Mazahir Panahov said at a press conference.

The outcome of the elections were reported to 1,665 of 1,718 municipalities of the country.

Some 1,632 municipalities have full information about results of elections.

Panahov said local election commissions promptly sent reports about the election outcome which were immediately placed on CEC website.

“We can fully announce the early outcome today. Usually there is a little difference between the initial and final results”.

Panahov didn’t agree with some remarks about the low turnout and said it was normal that 31 percent of voters participated in the voting process.

“I also want 100 percent voter turnout in the voting. But no country in the world can achieve that. The voters are free to vote, it is impossible to bring them to the polling stations forcibly. The opposition newspapers reported about some violations of law in several polling stations, but we didn’t receive any reports about those violations," he added.

/APA/