Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The Azerbaijani parliament has officially invited several international organizations for their participation in the upcoming presidential elections as observers, AzerTag state news agency quoted Milli Majlis spokesman Akif Tavakkuloglu as saying.

According to him, the parliament has sent official invitations to nine international organizations -- the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE PA), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS PA), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Turkic Speaking Countries, Centrist Asia Pacific Democrats International (CAPDI), the Permanent Conference of Political Parties from Latin America and the Caribbean (COPPPAL), the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) as well as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization.

According to the Constitution, the President of Azerbaijan is elected for a five-year term through general, direct and equal elections, by free, private and secret voting.

Azerbaijani citizens who have the right of election, initiative groups of electors, political parties and blocs of political parties are entitled to nominating candidates.

This year candidates from various parties - both the ruling and opposition ones - as well as self-nominated persons have submitted documents to Azerbaijan's election body. To date, the number of approved nominees has reached 21. The number of officially registered candidates is two. They are chairman of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, President Ilham Aliyev and the leader of Umid Party Igbal Aghazade.

September 9 is the last day to submit documents to the Central Election Commission (CEC) for registration as a candidate at the presidential election in Azerbaijan, which is due on October 9.

The acceptance of documents which started on August 20 will be completed at 18:00 on September 9.

The official election campaign will begin 23 days before the election. It will take place from September 16 to October 8.

Free airtime and space for publications will be allocated for registered presidential candidates as part of the pre-election campaign. Free air time will be allocated to candidates on Public Television and Radio Broadcasting company, while space for publications will be provided in Azerbaijan, Khalq Gazeti, Respublika and Bakinskiy Rabochiy newspapers.

If other broadcasters and periodicals decide to allocate paid air time and space for publication within the pre-election campaign, they are required to notify the CEC. Information about the conditions and payment is to be published no later than 35 days after the official announcement of the decision to schedule the elections.

According to the electoral law, the campaign can only be conducted from September 16 until 18:00 on October 8 and only by those authorized for such activity as stipulated by the domestic legislation and in compliance with the pertinent rules.