The presidential election in Azerbaijan was organized and conducted in accordance with international commitments and standards of democratic elections, including the standards and commitments of the OSCE and the Council of Europe, as well as the national legislation of Azerbaijan, a statement of observers from the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development said.
The statement was read out at a briefing on Wednesday by the GUAM Secretary General Valery Chechelashvili.
“As for the general election process, the GUAM observer group has no criticism to the organization of elections and activity of commissions at the polling stations, which could have affected the election’s results. The elections were held in the spirit of competition, and in general can be evaluated positively – as free and fair, the statement said.
GUAM observation group has made this statement, based on observations at 35 polling stations in Baku, as well as in seven polling stations in Sumgait city of Azerbaijan.
According to the results for 19:00 (polling stations were closed at this time), voter turnout during the voting in the presidential elections in Azerbaijan amounted to 72.31 percent (3,720,643 voters).
The presidential election voting, which took place on Wednesday, was completed in Azerbaijan.
Country’s polling stations opened at 8:00 and closed at 19:00 (local time).
Ten candidates took part in the elections including the Chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the chairman of Umid Party Igbal Aghazadeh, self-nominated candidate MP Zahid Oruj, the chairman of the United Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (UAPFP) MP Gudrat Hasanguliyev, the chairman of the Modern Musavat Party Hafiz Hajiyev, the chairman of the Azerbaijan Social Democratic Party (ASDP) Araz Alizadeh, the chairman of the National Revival Movement Party, MP Faraj Guliyev, the candidate nominated by the initiative group of voters of the ‘National Council of Democratic Forces’, Jamil Hasanli, the chairman of the Adalat Party, MP Ilyas Ismayilov and the chairman of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party (ADP) Sardar Jalaloglu.
The Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan has registered 5,145,643 voters.
In connection with the presidential election, the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan established 5,273 permanent and 219 temporary polling stations.
Web cameras have been installed at 1000 polling stations in 119 constituencies of Azerbaijan. Unlike in previous years, this time the voting process was monitored via mobile devices such as smartphones.
Totally, 52,000 people observed the election in Azerbaijan, nearly 1,400 of which were international observers.
Also, the presidential election was covered by over 70 representatives from over 20 international media outlets.
/Trend A.Akhundov/