Azernews.Az

Chairman of Azerbaijan Central Election Commission (CEC) Mazahir Panahov has given a press conference on preliminary results of the presidential election in the country.

"Today we have gone through a very remarkable day. The presidential elections were conducted perfectly," Panahov said at the press conference.

The CEC chairman said the voting began at 08.00 a.m. and ended at 07.00 p.m. Of about 5,145,645 eligible voters, 3,720,643 or 72.31% cast their ballot.

"The process was monitored by a number of reputable organizations. Also, web cameras were installed in 1000 polling stations (20 percent) to provide internet users with an opportunity to watch the whole voting process online. During the voting day, the CEC has not received any complaint. There were only complaints received on the telephone. They were immediately tackled," he said.

Thanking the people of Azerbaijan and representatives of international observation mission for active participation in the elections, Mr Panahov made public the early results.

He said that the CEC has received early results from 3,947 out of 5,492 polling stations, which makes nearly 72% of the total number of all polling stations.

The early results suggest the incumbent President Ilham Aliyev has won 2,282,936 votes or 84.73%.

Presidential candidate Jamil Hasanli ranked second by gaining 140,034 votes or 5.2%.

Other presidential candidates ranked in the following order: Igbal Agazade 62,186 votes (2.31%), Gudrat Hasanguliyev 56,708 votes (2.1%), Zahid Oruj 40,255 votes (1.49%), Ilyas Ismayilov 30,040 (1.11%), Araz Alizade 23,731 votes (0.88%), Faraj Guliyev 23,451 (0.87%), Hafiz Hajiyev 17,810 votes (0.66%), Sardar Mammadov 17,008 votes (0.63%). The vote counting is underway.

Panahov said the final results of the election would be announced tomorrow between 10.00 and 11.00.

"We are happy that the unanimous opinion of international observers, heads of delegations of foreign countries, including the U.S. and Eastern countries was that the elections were held perfectly," he said.

The chairman thanked international observers for accepting invitation to visit Azerbaijan.

Panahov then responded to questions from journalists.