Azerbaijanis Vote For A President While Europe & International Observers Look On

Azerbaijanis are already headed to the polls today to vote in what is the Caspian country’s eighth presidential election since the country was founded nearly three decades ago after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The country has about 5.3 million people out of a total population of 9.9 million registered voters. Over 5,600 polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. local time all across the country. Voting will conclude at 7:00 p.m.

As of 17:00 p.m. local time, the polling stations had recorded a 69.9 percent turnout.

Eight candidates are standing in this year’s race, including the incumbent president, Ilham Aliyev, who has served as president since 2003 and last won the election in 2013.

Aliyev is running against independent candidate Zahid Oruj, the Social Democrat Party candidate Araz Alizade, Gudrat Hasanguliyev from the Whole Azerbaijan Popular Font Party, Faraj Guliyev from the National Revival Movement Party, Hafiz Hajiyev from the Modern Musavat Party, Razi Nurullayev from the Frontier’s Initiative Group, and Sardar Jalaloghlu from the Azerbaijan Democrat Party.

An election observation mission from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) arrived in Azerbaijan on Monday, when they met with each of the eight candidates. Stefan Schennach, co-rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Union from Austrian parliament, had announced on Twitter PACE’s arrival.

“PACE Azerbaidjan [Azerbaijan] the election observation team arrived in Baku - today [we will have] meetings with ODIHR and the candidates for president,” Schennach wrote in his official Twitter page.

"I can say that I am very impressed by the high turnout, although it is still quite early," Tadeusz Ivinsky, a former Polish parliamentarian and ex-co-rapporteur of the PACE Monitoring Committee on Azerbaijan, told Trend on Wednesday.

"A lot of people came to vote, especially women," he added.

PACE is teaming up with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which deployed a long-term primary election observation mission of 10 staff in Azerbaijan early last month. Operations will remain in place in Azerbaijan until April 18 to be present for the vote counting and assess post-election developments.

ODIHR’s operations in the country consist of over 300 observers that were deployed prior to April 11. They are tasked with monitoring the opening of polling stations, voting, ballot counting, and the tabulation of results.

Over 42,000 local and 400 international observers in addition to the OSCE ODIHR mission coming from various organizations, including the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-Speaking Countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), are monitoring this year’s election. Parliamentarians from seven CIS countries, namely Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Moldova, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, are taking part in the monitoring efforts.