Azerbaijan ensures electors' rights to freely make choice
By Aynur Karimova
The November 1 parliamentary elections were conducted in compliance with the law of Azerbaijan, and the citizens of the country were provided with the opportunity to freely make their choice.
This was announced by Sergey Lebedev, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the CIS, the head of the CIS observation mission, at a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on November 2.
Lebedev said the delegation, which he leads, has conducted successful missions in several countries of the CIS this year.
Noting that the delegation of 147 members observed the elections in Azerbaijan, he emphasized that the mission usually determines the number of delegates by consent with countries, and carries out the observation in compliance with the law of that country.
President Aliyev stressed the importance of an objective approach of the organization, led by Lebedev, based on the country's legislation and its absolutely non-politicized position.
The head of state said that despite Azerbaijan’s invitation, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights insisted on sending an arbitrary number of observers to the country.
“When we offered them to adjust the number of observers in accordance with the number of population, they refused to monitor the elections,” President Aliyev said, adding that this action of the OSCE/ODIHR was unacceptable.
The head of state stressed that despite all of this, numerous observers representing the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Commonwealth of Independent States, other international organizations and countries monitored the electoral process.
Azerbaijan held parliamentary elections on November 1. The Central Election Commission of the country announced the results of the voting at the Azerbaijani parliamentary election on November 2.
The election was declared valid at all polling stations, and the voter turnout at the election was 55.7 percent. Over 2.89 million voters cast their ballots during the election, which is six percent more than in the previous election.
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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova
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