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There are already numerous violations during parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, Minval.az reports.

In the electoral district N14 of Sabirabad rayon, the voters’ right thumbs were marked with invisible ink, instead of the left thumbs. The violation was corrected after the observers’ intervention. MP candidate Ramin Hajili wrote on his Facebook page that a journalist from the online TV Kanal13 was not allowed to enter the polling station N2 of the Binagadin electoral district N8, according to the report.
Minval.az’s special correspondent reported that Panah Husein, one of the candidates, visited several polling stations in Sabirabad rayon to check the situation. The chairperson of the polling station N7 turned out to be keeping the most part of the ballot-papers in a safe in another room and did not pay attention to the observers’ protest. A similar situation was registered at the polling station N15, where the ¾ part of the ballot-papers were in another room. Moreover, there were unauthorized persons in the polling stations. The candidate also found police officers hiding in the canteen. The chairperson of the polling station N13 did not let the observers come close to the ballot boxes. In addition, Husein discovered that three ballot-papers had been given to one of the voters.

A representative from the monitoring centre Rey, conducting exit poll at the polling station N3, banned Minval.az from filming the process. The journalists of the outlet were also pressured in the polling station N10 of Binagadi electoral district N8. The chairperson of the electoral commission of the station demanded them to show documents certifying identity even though the journalists showed him their press passes, and threatened to call the police. In particular, the observers demanded that the journalists did not take photos.

Minval.az also notes low voter turnout at the polling stations in Binagadin rayon. The website points out that while the pro-government Azerbaijani media write about the voters’ significantly active participation in the elections, its correspondents report the contrary.
“Carousel voting” was discovered in the polling station N13 of Sabirabad rayon, which resulted in a quarrel. The police was watching this without intervening.
According to Minval.az, the Institute for Democratic Initiatives also reports “carousels” in the polling station N30 of the electoral district N12. Another case of falsification took place in the Surakhan third electoral district N32. The videos circulating across social networks recorded the moment the chairperson of the station freely dropped a pile of voting papers into the ballot box and went on working as if nothing had happened.
Rufat Alieyev, the observer representing the candidate Tural Abbasli, told Minval.az that in the voting district N29 of Nasimi first electoral district N21, an adult woman dropped a pile of voting papers in the ballot box and ran away. She said she was the candidate Fahreddin Gurbanov’s representative. Later, Minval.az’s correspondents reported that the police had turned Rufat Aliyev out of the station because he exposed a voting carousel and found out voting of people who were from different voting stations in accord with the places of their registration.
In the voting station N25 of Binagadin electoral district N8, Minval.az interviewed an “observer” from the party of Popular Front of United Azerbaijan. The woman turned out not to be a member of that party, and the executives of the rayon had forced her to appear as an observer from that party.
Azer Gasimli, an MP candidate, told Minval.az that voting carousel is taking place in all of the polling stations in Nasimi-Sabayil electoral district N23 since 08:00 with piles of voting papers being dropped into the ballot boxes at the presence of the police.
“Although we complained to the chairperson of the district, he said there was no falsification. After the conversation, pressure was exerted on our in all the polling stations and the police intervened. They demanded from them to tell me to remove the photos and videos I had shared on Facebook, otherwise they would be arrested. This gives a good reason to state that the same station is in charge for the falsification,” the MP candidate said.
Elman Fattakh, the Deputy Chairman of Musavat Party, posted on his Facebook page a photo of a voting paper, which had been marked in advance.
Turan agency reports that on the eve of the polling day, the executive authorities exerted pressure on the observers and the members of the electoral commissions of the polling stations, who had advisory votes and represented the MP candidate from 42 Sumgait second district, ReAl movement member Hafiz Babali. The observers quitted their responsibilities after the threats.
The news website Caucasian Knot observed the voting process in three polling stations of 12th Garadagh-Binagadi-Yasamal districts. Natig Jafarli, the executive secretary of the opposition movement ReAl, is in the ballots of the district. There were no observers at the station N25 when it opened. “As for the turnout, about 30 people voted during the first half an hour after the stations opened. They were mainly the military personnel living in the multi-storey building of the Special State Protection Service,” Caucasian Knot writes. According to the website, Vitaly Busko, an MP from Belarus and observer from the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS, arrived at the station at about 8:30. He asked the commission members how many people had already voted. One of the members said “a hundred” without thinking.
According to the Azerbaijani information agency Trend, Rufat Gulmammadov, head of the Information Centre Elections, said that the voter turnout was 28.2 percent (1468205 voters) as of 12:00 at the local time.
The agency reports that the Azerbaijani ombudswoman Elmira Suleymanova said there were no irregularities during the elections. “The staffers of the Ombudsman’s Office are observing the polls across the whole country. We have received no reports of incidents during the polls,” she said. Sergey Lebedev, the head of the CIS monitoring delegation, told Trend that the process is calmly underway and the voters are highly active. According to Trend report, Sofa Landver, an Israeli politician and member of Knesset, who is an Israeli monitoring mission representative, also said there were no irregularities during the votes.
According to APA news agency, Serikzhan Kanayev, the head of the monitoring mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking Countries (TURKPA), said TURKPA had not revealed any violations of the voting process yet. He also highlighted the voters’ active participation.
Alexander Brod, co-chairman of Civil Control, an association of Russian NGOs protecting voting rights, told Interfax Azerbaijan that the voting for the parliamentary elections is less active than it was during the presidential elections. “I think, parliamentary elections do not evoke so much activeness of the population as the presidential ones,” he told the agency.
Parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan started on 1 November, where 767 candidates are struggling for the 125 seats in the Parliament. Around 5.2 million Azerbaijani citizens can use their right to vote in 5547 polling stations. The parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan are observed by 503 international monitors from 40 organisations, including PACE, Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS and the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking Countries. International agencies took up rather stern stance regarding the upcoming parliamentary elections. 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. The European Parliament followed the suit.