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In its reports the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights expressed its concerns about the fact that according to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, the number of voters in the republic is higher than the data of the Central Election Commission by 1.5 million.

According to the Azerbaijani news agency "APA", the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights submitted a report to assess the requirements of the mission of observers for the forthcoming presidential elections in Azerbaijan on this October.

The report reflects in details the constitutional requirements for holding elections, the activities of the election administration, voters’ rights, the process of the pre-election campaign, campaign financing, the registration of presidential candidates, the media's work in this direction, etc.

According to the CEC, there are currently some 4.9 million registered voters, which differ significantly from the 6.4 million citizens of voting age recorded by the State Statistics Committee, who are also over 18.

It says that representatives of official bodies of Azerbaijan emphasized that the electoral process would be transparent and that observation by the OSCE/ODIHR and any recommendations for potential improvement of the process would be welcomed. As the report states other interlocutors requested that the OSCE/ODIHR deploy a large number of observers to cover all stages of the electoral process, as well as to monitor the freedom of assembly and the media, the procedures on Election Day, including counting of votes and sizing up.

In addition to a core team of experts, the OSCE/ODIHR recommends the secondment of 30 long-term observers and 280 short-term observers from OSCE participating States.

For the upcoming election, several opposition parties and a number of civil society activists formed the National Council of Democratic Forces (NCDF), with the intention to propose a joint opposition candidate, who is Rustam Ibrahimbekov. The announced nominee for presidential candidate of the REALMovement, Ilgar Mammadov, was arrested in January 2013 in connection with public disorder in the town of Ismayili and has since been in pre-trial detention. On June 13 the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for releasing him.

The reports also notes that in 2009, the Constitution was amended, removing the limitation of two consecutive terms for the presidency, thereby allowing the incumbent president to stand for a third consecutive term. The Council of the European Commission for Democracy (Venice Commission) considers that such restrictions can be a serious setback on the road to a consolidated democracy in Azerbaijan.

Previously the experts have repeatedly stressed that the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan seriously overstates the population figures in the Azerbaijan Republic. In particular, the number of people older than 18 stated by the SSC exceeds the real voters of that age by more than 22% or 1.5 million people. This difference just reveals that the official population data in Azerbaijan does not reflect the reality, at least by about 22% or by about 2 mln. people.

There has already been a talk about the serious difference between the number of voters and the number of citizens above 18. For instance, on November 2, 2010, the head of the Azerbaijani Center of Monitoring of Elections and Democracy Training, Anar Mamedli asked the head of the CEC of Azerbaijan to explain the situation with the list of voters.

Mamedli mentioned the difference between the quantity of voters in the data provided by CEC and SSC of Azerbaijan. For instance, the site of CEC talks about 4 829 999 people listed as voters or 54% from the official population of Azerbaijan. On the other hand, the official site of Azerbaijan says that the population of Azerbaijan that is older than 18 years (who have right to vote) makes about 6 438 000 people.

It is worth mentioning that there are serious inconsistencies related to the overstatement of SSC concerning Azerbaijani population and also in other spheres. For instance, in July 2012 an expert in the educational sphere Alovsat Osmanli, commenting on the Azerbaijani Educational Ministry’s data mentioned that according to the statistical data 11 years ago about 133 thousand people were accepted to Azerbaijani schools. From these 133 thousand students, only 77 thousand received graduating diplomas. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan could not explain what happened to the 50 thousand Azerbaijani students. According to the experts, the SSC of Azerbaijan overstates the population of Azerbaijan by about 35% while in reality the population of the republic is about 6 mln. people.