The Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities assessed the municipal elections in Azerbaijan, congress Vice President Jean-Claude Freon said at a news conference in Baku today.
Monitoring showed a need to improve ballot quality, he said.
The observation mission monitored voting at over 100 constituencies.
The mission assessed the organization of the elections as satisfactory from a material point of view. However, the observers noted several violations, he added.
The mission will publicize the results of its monitoring Jan. 15 at a congress meeting. A final report will be presented in March, Frecon said.
He thanked the Azerbaijani authorities for their assistance.
The mission monitored voting during yesterday’s municipal elections.
The mission included Gaya Doganoglu (Turkey), Istvan Borbely (Hungary), Nigel Mermagen (UK), Dobrikov Milovanovic (Serbia) and Gudrun Mosler-Ternstrem (Austria).
The municipal elections ran successfully, Azerbaijani Central Elections (CEC) Commission Chairman (CEC) Mazahir Panahov said at a news conference today.
He added that based on preliminary information, the voter turnout was 31.86 percent.
The country has about 4.6 million registered voters. About 15,682 members are planned to be elected to 1,718 municipalities. Municipal elections were held twice in 1999 and 2004.
Azerbaijan has registered about 31,000 candidates, including 6,108 women, for municipal members. Candidates from 18 political parties have been registered for elections.
The CEC registered 48,388 observers, including 1,160 local observers and 52 foreign observers.
According to Panahov, the observers did not record any violations impeding the election results. He noted that the CEC “hotline” received calls, which mostly of an informative character.
/ Trend T.Konyayeva /