Azernews.Az

(Updating with comments by chairman of the Central Electoral Commission in fourth paragraph)

By Aynur Jafarova

Campaigning for next month's presidential election kicked off today with incumbent Ilham Aliyev vying for the top job with nine other candidates.

The campaigning will take three weeks and end 24 hours before the balloting starts at 0800 local time on October 9.

Aliyev, who presided over a tripling of the economy in the past decade, is expected to win a third term in office. Over 80 per cent of Azeris are ready to vote for him, according to a recent poll conducted by the non-governmental Ray (Opinion) research group.

All of the country's 125 electoral districts are ready to hold a "democratic and transparent" election, Mazahir Panahov, chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, told reporters today.

Panahov said web cameras have been installed at 20 percent of all polling stations across the country to monitor the election.