On September 1, Azerbaijan is holding early elections to the Milli Majlis, the republic’s parliament. For the first time in history, they are being held throughout the country, including Karabakh. More than 6.4 million registered voters can take part in them.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, his wife Mehriban Aliyeva and daughter Leyla Aliyeva have already taken part in the voting. The family visited the polling station located in Secondary School No. 6 in Baku .
British House of Lords member Kurban Hussein, who is acting as a foreign observer at a polling station in Shusha, said that parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan are being held without any illegal incidents. According to him, people themselves choose their candidate, put a tick and drop the ballot in the ballot box.
It is a process very similar to what we practice in our country. I did not notice anything [illegal] ,” Hussein said.
Also, the fingerprints of Azerbaijani residents who come to the polling stations are scanned . This is necessary to prevent one person from voting twice. The turnout as of 12:00 local time (11:00 Moscow time) was 20.39%.
There are about 6.5 thousand polling stations open in Azerbaijan. A thousand web cameras have been installed to monitor the voting process. The Central Election Commission has registered more than 112 thousand local and 589 international observers. Voters of Armenian descent who have agreed to receive Azerbaijani citizenship can also vote for candidates.
The most striking moments from the elections are in The Eastern Herald gallery.
