Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The presidential election organized in full compliance with Azerbaijan's national legislation was marked by a high voter turnout, the Foreign Ministry's statement issued on the October 9 election reads.

The statement further reads that ten candidates were contesting on the Election Day. The total number of polling stations was 5,492, among them 37 stations in the diplomatic and consular missions of Azerbaijan in foreign countries.

"Long-term and short-term election observation was conducted by more than 53,000 observers, including 1,300 international observers, invited by the Government and Parliament of Azerbaijan, which represented 100 countries and 50 international and non-governmental organizations, such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and its Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , the European Parliament, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, the Economic Cooperation Organization, the Council of Turkic Speaking Countries and others.

"Out of approximately 5.145 million registered voters 72.31 per cent participated in the election. According to the preliminary report by the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan, incumbent President Ilham Aliyev received 84.55 per cent of the votes," the statement reads.

The ministry notes that as stated in the Joint Statement by the delegations of PACE and European Parliament, "electoral process was free, fair and transparent, while electoral procedures on the eve and on election day have been carried out in a professional and peaceful way."

According to the International Election Observation Mission of the OSCE PA and OSCE/ODIHR "the Central Election Commission efficiently administered the technical preparations for the election". The Election Observation Mission of the CIS underlined that "the election was democratic, objective and legitimate". The OIC Election Observation Mission assessed the election as successful, free and fair which constitutes an important achievement towards strengthening democracy in Azerbaijan."

Earlier, the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Azerbaijan announced preliminary results of the October 9 presidential election in Azerbaijan, with President Aliyev claiming 84.55% of the votes.

According to the preliminary results, the turnout of the eligible voters was 72.01%.

The results of the other candidates are as follows: Hasanli Jamil - 5.53%; Agazade Igbal- 2.40%; Hasanguliyev Gudrat - 1.99%; Oruj Zahid- 1.45%; Ilyas Ismayilov- 1.07%; Alizade Araz - 0.87%; Guliyev Faraj - 0.86%; Hajiyev Hafiz - 0.66%; Mammadov Sardar - 0.61%.