BAKU, FEB 9 (DNA) -:Despite snow fall and severe cold the Azerbaijanis thronged to the Polling Stations to exercise their voting right for the election of 125 Parliamentarians ( MilliMajlis ) on Sunday, February the 9. The peaceful completion of this huge exercise obliged the Foreign observers and media men to appreciate the Central Election Commission for the arrangements it under took for the conduct of this gigantic exercise.
It is important to mention here that President IlhamAliyev and the first lady reached at Sabail constituency No. 29 since early hours and polled their votes.
Webcams were installed at 1000 polling stations covering the whole territory of the country and internet users were allowed to observe all the processes independently and incessantly through the Ccntral Election Commission website without any registration.
This scribe along with other fellow colleagues as well as the observers visited multiple Polling Stations, talked to the Presiding officers about the arrangements while with voters regarding the observance of transparency and fairness, all of them were full of praise for the Central Election Commission for the exemplary arrangements it took for the job.
When this scribe asked from a number of young voters about their expectations to the newly emerging Parliament, they said that they were sure that their representatives will come up to their expectations by carrying forward the reforms agenda of the sitting President and will turn their motherland more strengthened and prosperous.
Earlier the delegation of Observers and media men from Pakistan visited Naxcivan a day before the election and checked a number of polling stations. Everybody in the delegation was more than satisfied with the polling arrangements and the confidence and alertness of the polling staff.
On his part addressing a Press Conference at the Central Election Commission in Baku, Mr. MazahirPanahov stated that the elections were conducted in 125 constituencies and 5573 polling stations. 5442 of the polling stations functioned permanently and 131 of them functioned temporarily. 5238000 voters were included in voters’ lists on permanent polling stations and 91461 were included on temporary polling stations. Thus, the total number of voters was 5329461. There were IDP polling stations within 4 election constituencies. 523 polling stations were established for 340689 internally displaced voters.
Mr.MazahirPanahov went on to say that 1314 contenders participated in the competition for deputies. 246 of them were nominated by political parties, 11 of by voters’ initiative groups and 1057 persons joined the elections on their own initiatives.Hence In general, 305 candidates were party members.
89676 persons with different status were entitled to observe the work of Precinct Election Commissions. So that, 883 international (58 citizens from 59 international organizations), 77790 domestic (4264 at CEC, 73526 at Con.ECs) observers were accredited to monitor the elections (there were also 35152 observers from 24 political parties and 2737 from 21 non-governmental organizations among domestic observers).
199 representatives of 132 foreign mass media also joined the observation of the elections. Political parties appointed 7690 members with consultative rights to lower election commissions. Meanwhile, 989 authorized representatives and 2125 agents of political parties and candidates participated in the elections.
