Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

The voting in the municipal election is underway in Azerbaijan.

The voter turnout in the municipal election hit 21.44 percent in Azerbaijan as of 12 p.m., Rufat Gulmammadov, CEC Information Centre Director, said on December 23.

He added that 1,033,210 people have already voted. The total number of voters is 4,819,382 people.

The CEC "hot line" has received 25 referential appeals up to now. No complaints have been received so far.

The polling stations are open for voting from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. Around 15,035 members of 1,607 municipalities must be elected.

The election is conducted on 118 constituencies. The voting will take place at 5,015 polling stations. Around 4,887 are permanent and 128 - temporary. The municipal election is not held in seven constituencies situated in the territory occupied by Armenia.

“The top election district with the highest turnout is Gusar constituency N51 (31.03 percent). The lowest voter turnout was recorded in Kapaz second (Ganja) constituency N40 (10.34 percent),” Gulmammadov said.

Around 37,077 candidates were registered in the municipal election. Around 13,907 candidates were nominated by eight political parties, namely, New Azerbaijan party, Ana Vatan party, Civil Solidarity Party, Umid party, Azerbaijani Social Democratic Party, National Revival Movement Party, Azerbaijan Democratic Reforms Party and Boyuk Qurtulus party.

Around 23,061 candidates are self-nominated and 109 candidates were nominated by the initiative groups.

The vote will be followed by 50,551 local observers. The representatives of the CIS Parliamentary Assembly will also observe the elections.