Gauhar Malik
Baku
President of Azerbaijan Iham Aliyev casts his vote in Baku.
Bracing freezing cold and chilling winds, thousands of Azeri voters flanked the ballot booths throughout the country to show their support for democratic choice in Parliamentary elections on Sunday.
The voter turnout in the Azerbaijani parliamentary elections was little more than 44.84 percent which means that 2,389,754 voters out of 5,329,461 voted in the elections. Foreign observers noted that in the wake of severe cold it was laudable that still thousands of men and women, young and old turned out to cast their votes for more than 1,314 candidates who had registered within the early parliamentary elections.
Azerbaijani voters bravely face snow and cold, turn up to vote.
The candidacies of 246 people were nominated by 19 political parties while 1,057 fought the elections as independent candidate. There were also eleven candidate nominated by the initiative groups.
Female candidates represented twenty-one percent while the male candidates representation was about 79 percent.
The Election Commission had established 5,573 permanent polling stations operated in 125 constituencies throughout the country.
What was more pleasing that about 883 international observers (including more than a dozen from Pakistan) and 77,790 local observers were monitoring the voting process and almost all of them appeared highly satisfied.
Among the local observers, 35,152 were representatives of political parties. International observers represented 58 countries and 59 organizations.
Gauhar Zahid Malik Executive Editor Pakistan Observer visiting polling station 29 Binagadi Baku as international observer.
Earlier Azerbaijani Central Election Commission (CEC) Mazahir Panahov said on Sunday that All the necessary conditions have been created for the free voting of people in the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.
He reminded that “The task of the members of the precinct election commissions is to ensure compliance of all electoral activity to the Electoral Code.”
“Creating all conditions for voters is our duty and we made everything possible to carry out all the work in accordance with the Electoral Code,” Panahov said.
The CEC chairman added that members of the precinct election commissions must not impede the activity of those accredited by the CEC and district election commissions to monitor the electoral process, while the accredited individuals must not impede the activity of polling stations. Chief of the CIS observer mission Viktor Guminsky was quoted as saying that the Azerbaijani Central Election Commission has carried out a great job for the elections to be open, organized and democratic.
“The mission launched its work on January 19,” head of the CIS observer mission added. “The work of observers is long-term. In total, there are 252 observers from eight countries, as well as representatives of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Member-States of the Commonwealth of Independent States the Parliamentary Assembly of the Belarus-Russia Union, and the CIS Executive Committee.”
The performance of Azerbaijan Central Election Commission was highly appreciated by local and international observers.
Guminsky said the 252-member CIS election observation mission was monitoring the voting in Azerbaijan‘s parliamentary elections throughout the entire territory of the country and added that a record number candidates were running for parliamentary seats.
