A few 767 candidates claim for 125 seats in the Azerbaijani parliament.
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The exit poll will be conducted by the ELS independent research center, the REY Monitoring Center, as well as the Azerbaijani youth’s rights protection center together with the French “Opinion Way” Social Research Institute, the Citizens’ Labor Rights Protection League together with the US AJF & Associates Inc during the election. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has sent the greatest number of observers – 147.
What we have seen up to now indicates that the open and transparent elections continue in the country, the mission head said.
The OSCE said the restriction on the number of observers would make it impossible to monitor the vote effectively.
The mainstream opposition in Azerbaijan, a mainly Muslim country of about 9 million people between Iran, Russian Federation and Turkey, is boycotting the poll.
The leading opposition party, Musavat, announced Wednesday that it was pulling out of the balloting.
Last parliamentary elections were held in Azerbaijan on November 7, 2010. Intigam Aliyev, Rasul Jafarov, Leyla Yunus – the list of human rights defenders and government-critics who have been made political prisoners in Azerbaijan goes on and on.
Amnesty global has protested what it described as “sustained and severe attack” on the freedom of expression in Azerbaijan in the run-up to the parliamentary election after two of its staff were stopped at the border and deported.
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Human Rights Watch said this week that Azeri authorities had convicted or imprisoned at least 35 journalists and rights and political activists in 2014 and that “the crackdown continued at a dizzying pace”.
