Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The Central Election Commission (CEC) has officially registered self-nominated Zahid Oruj as a candidate for the presidential election in Azerbaijan to be held on October 9, bringing the number of officially registered election hopefuls to three.

Earlier, chairman of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, President Ilham Aliyev and the leader of Umid Party Igbal Aghazade were registered by the senior electoral body.

During the meeting held on September 9 under the chairmanship of CEC head Mazahir Panahov, the authorized representatives of Zahid Oruj were registered as well.

The number of approved nominees has reached 21 so far.

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.

September 9 is the deadline to submit documents to the CEC for registration as a candidate at the presidential election in Azerbaijan. The acceptance of documents which started on August 20 ended at 18:00.

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

Meanwhile, the CEC determined the locations for the placement of pre-election campaign materials. According to the CEC's decision, the campaign materials will be placed in the area of each polling station.

The locations for the placement of campaign materials will be designated by local executive and municipal bodies.

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.

In light of the elections, the number of international organizations that intend to observe the vote is on the increase.

The CIS Executive Committee told Trend news agency on September 9 that the headquarters of the CIS mission which will observe the presidential elections in Azerbaijan will start working on September 10. On that day deputy chairman of the Executive Committee Vladimir Garkun will hold a meeting with CEC chairman Mazahir Panahov.

Furthermore, the staff of the long-term observation mission has already been formed. It consists of the experts of the Executive Committee, including representatives of the diplomatic missions of the CIS countries accredited in Baku.

The observation mission will be headed by the chairman of the Executive Committee of the CIS, Executive Secretary Sergey Lebedev.

Spokesman of the Azerbaijani parliament Akif Tavakkuloglu has said the parliament officially invited the following organizations to observe the upcoming presidential elections: 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.