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Parliamentary election polls started today in Azerbaijan. The polling stations opened at 08:00 o’clock and will close at 19:00. Rufat Gulmammadov, head of the Information Centre Elections, says the voter turnout was 12.8 per cent (667732 voters) as for 10:00 on the local time, Azerbaijani news agency Trend reports.

According to the agency, the Information Centre under the Secretariat of the Central Election Commission (CEC) will release preliminary information about the voting process and the voter turnout five times during the day (10:00, 12:00, 15:00, 17:00 and 19:00). Preliminary results of the votes will be reported on the CEC website at night immediately after district election commissions hand in the records in a generalised table for each polling district.

The parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan will be observed by 503 international monitors from 40 organisations, including PACE, Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS and the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking Countries. The largest observing mission arrived from the CIS – 150 people. The mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe includes 30 monitors.
For the 125 seats in the Azerbaijani Parliament, 767 candidates are struggling. Web cameras are installed in 1000 polling stations across 119 voting districts to observe the process.

Around 5.2 million Azerbaijani citizens can use their right to vote in 5547 polling stations. The country’s legislation does not maintain a minimal limit of voter turnout. Since 2005, the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan are held only on plurality voting system. According to the system, the candidates who receive the majority of the votes in a district are considered to be elected. The elections are valid in any number of the people who voted.

Four organisations are in charge of holding exit-poll, they are the local research centres ELS and Rey (Opinion), as well as Arthur J. Finkelstein & Associates from the US and OpinionWay from France.
According to local APA news agency, Mazahir Panahov, the chairman of Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan, told a press conference that the highest number of candidates in one polling district is 12 and the lowest number is three. He added that 15 political parties are set to directly take part in the elections, while seven parties appear in Azadlig 2015 bloc (Freedom 2015).
According to Panahov, the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan are in charge of the public security during the polling day. “The respective agencies are taking up measures because after the elections, certain forces may do such actions, which would send the elections to the background,” he highlighted.
The CEC head also informed the press conference that the Ministry of Internal Affairs will work in strengthened mode to secure public order on the polling day. “The police, however, must keep 100 metres away from the polling stations. Meanwhile, we always repeat there should also be a police officer inside the polling stations in case something happens,” he said.
Assessing the situation on the polling day, Pahanov noted that there have been no reports about law violations, and highlighted that the CEC pays no attention to the discussions in the social media.
The Russian information agency TASS reports that the names of all the candidates from the opposition party Musavat, which said it refused to take part in the elections a few days before the polls, will remain in the ballot-paper. Panahov said the law prohibits making changes in the ballot-papers within less than 10 days before the polls. “If they are elected, the CEC will admit it. Then, it would be up to them to decide whether they refuse their MP mandate or not,” Panahov said, as cited by the agency.
According to the Institute for Democratic Initiatives, an NGO monitoring elections, the majority of the MP candidates in the final ballot-papers constitute the representatives from the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party – 115 candidates. Musavat party (24 candidates) follows it; the party of Popular Front of United Azerbaijan comes next with 22 candidates followed by Azadliq 2015 bloc (20 candidates). Opposition party Umid (Hope) is represented by 17 candidates, National Revival Movement Party comes closely after it with 16 candidates, Great Order Party with 15 candidates, Civic Solidarity Party – 14. Twelve candidates will be struggling for seats for the Party of Democratic Reforms, 10 for the National Independence Party, and so on. In addition, some representatives of opposition bodies are running for MPs as non-party candidates, including 10 candidates from the Republican Alternative movement (ReAl), two from Nida, whose names remain in the ballot-papers, one candidate from D-18 and 3 candidates from the White Bloc.
The international agencies reportedly took up rather stern stance regarding the upcoming parliamentary elections. On 11 September 2015, Michael Georg Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), announced that, due to restrictions imposed by the Azerbaijani authorities, ODIHR had no choice but to cancel its mission to observe the country’s parliamentary elections. Earlier, ODIHR had reported about its intention to send 380 observers to Azerbaijan.