Azernews.Az

BAKU – An Azerbaijani group working to assist in civil society development has issued an interim report assessing the environment in the country ahead of the November 7 parliamentary elections.

The pre-election campaigns are low-key and the opposition is actively involved in the election race, the Association of Assistance to Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan said.

"I can say based on our observations that this year’s elections are ongoing more constructively and calmly than the 2005 parliamentary elections, which stems from the fact that this time the opposition’s radicalism has decreased," commented Maharram Zulfugarli, head of the group’s election headquarters.

Zulfugarli said that whereas opposition representatives refused to sit on election commissions during the previous elections, this is not the case now. All of the vacant seats in the Central Election Commission, the country’s senior electoral body, as well as in constituency election commissions, have been taken.

18 seats in the commissions are equally split among pro-government, opposition and independent members. But the opposition claims that independent members tend to favor the government.

Zulfugarli said all opposition forces had decided to join the elections, which indicates that the pre-election climate in Azerbaijan is more democratic than it was in previous years.

According to Zulfugarli, registration of election candidates was carried out in line with the law. However, "some technical problems" emerged in the process, with the main problem being expired identification documents of citizens.

The Association representative said suitable conditions have been provided for pre-election campaigning. Opposition party leaders have held numerous meetings with voters in the constituencies they are running in, and video footage of those meetings has been posted on their Web blogs.

Zulfugarli said the Association, which will observe the polling in 4,400 ballot stations in 106 constituencies, will announce its findings five times throughout election day. On November 8, the organization will issue a report assessing the overall conduct of the elections.

Voters will elect 125 members of parliament for a five-year term under the majority of votes. The number of registered voters is about 4.8 million in the country of 9 million people.