Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

As of 15:00, 2,987,213 million people (58.05 percent) voted at the presidential elections in Azerbaijan, the Information Center under the Central Election Commission (CEC) said on October 9 as Azerbaijani citizens cast ballots to elect their head of state.

Some 50.4 percent of voters in Ganja, the second largest city in Azerbaijan, participated in the presidential elections. 77,972 persons cast their votes in the city.

CEC Chairman Mazahir Panahov released information on violations which took place in the polling stations on election day.

According to Panahov, the CEC received information on violations in several polling stations.

He went on to say that it is immoral to write false information using social networks.

As of 12:00 local time, electors' activity was 36.81 percent, which is high turnout for presidential elections, Panahov told journalists.

Touching on the activity of international observers, the CEC chairman said it is early to make an official decision on the issue.

"According to the received information, the international observers visit all polling stations in the regions of Azerbaijan and perhaps they will express their opinion after the elections. As is known, the number of international observers is high enough. This shows that great interest is taken in Azerbaijan," he said.

Panahov also said that foreign nationals highly appreciated the activity of the election commission.

He welcomed the fact that the general dynamics provides grounds to say that the voters are very active in the presidential elections.

Head of the Information Center Rufat Gulmammadov told Trend news agency that the CEC has received 49 appeals via a hotline.

According to him, no appeal is related to violations in the presidential elections.

They were mainly associated with the voters' checking their names on electoral lists and the addresses of polling stations.

Chairman of the Press Council Aflatun Amashov said that as of 15:00 local time only one appeal was received through the hotline of the Council created over the presidential elections and it was related to a technical problem, which was resolved.

Members of the Council's board visit the polling stations and familiarize themselves with the situation, Amashov said.

"Members of the Press Council monitoring group who observe the voting process in various polling stations have not registered any facts preventing the implementation of the professional obligations of the media outlet representatives," he said.

Polling stations opened throughout Azerbaijan at 8 a.m. This year ten candidates are competing for the top job.

The number of eligible voters in the country of around 9.4 million people is nearly 5,145,000. The voting is being conducted in 5,492 polling stations. Thirty-eight polling stations were set up abroad.

The presidential election is observed by leading media outlets of the world, including the Turkish TV channel TRT Haber, Russia's ITAR-TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies, Euronews TV channel as well as Reuters.