The Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan (ACSDA) published an interim report on the results of monitoring of the pre-election situation in the country. “The current election situation in Azerbaijan can be characterized as a more constructive compared to the parliamentary elections in 2005,” ACSDA Electoral Staff Head Maharram Zulfugarli said on Tuesday.
Parliamentary elections are scheduled for Nov. 7. The election campaign was officially launched on September 3. Previous legislative elections were held in November 2005. Parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan are held by the majority system in 125 electoral constituencies.
According to the results of the ACSDA monitoring, political parties do not allocate funds to candidates for campaigning, which led to lower demand for airtime and print space to advertise in newspapers, compared to 2005. The report also noted that candidates’ meetings with voters were not up to par.
“The candidates’ speeches during the provided free airtime show the identity of platforms of several candidates from the same constituency,” Zulfugarli said. He noted that an educational work should be conducted for candidates in the future for identifying an individual platform.
Regarding the conditions created for the observers, he said they do not fully meet the necessary requirements in some polling stations. “At certain polling stations, the place reserved for observers far away from the main selective action,” Zulfugarli said.
ACSDA has been conducting election monitoring in Azerbaijan since 2004. The Association will monitor the 4,400 polling stations in 106 constituencies in the 2010-parliamentary elections.