Azerbaijan: 800+ int’l observers to watch snap election

BAKU

On the eve of Sunday’s snap parliamentary election in Azerbaijan, hundreds of local and international observers are set to monitor the casting and counting of ballots.

Azerbaijan last month sent official invitations to many international organizations and institutions to observe the country’s early elections.

Over 65,000 local and more than 800 international observers representing at least 55 countries and 56 organizations have been accredited for monitoring the Milli Majlis, or National Assembly elections.

The number of candidates for deputy has reached 1,317, Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission announced Friday.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has deployed an observation mission to monitor the polls, it said earlier in a statement.

The mission, headed by Ambassador Peter Tejler, consists of a core group of 12 international experts based in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, while another 30 long-term observers have been requested from OSCE participating states, the statement added.

The OSCE office – which has observed 10 Azerbaijani elections since 1995, most recently the 2018 early presidential election – also requested the deployment of 350 short-term observers prior to election day.

Sent nationwide in multinational teams of two, the observers are set to monitor the opening of polling stations, the voting, the counting of ballots, and the tabulation of results, the institution said.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) earlier announced that a 25-member delegation led by Frank Schwabe will be in Azerbaijan on Feb. 7-10 to observe the vote.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE-PA) confirmed it will send a delegation of 59 observers -- including 40 MPs from 29 countries -- to monitor the early parliamentary elections in the country, according to Azerbaijan’s Trend news agency.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Turkic-speaking countries (TURKPA) was also scheduled to send an observation mission to follow the snap polls.

On Jan.14, international observers from the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (IPA-CIS) started their mission in Azerbaijan, according to the country’s Central Election Commission.

After starting on Jan. 17, campaigning was officially stopped at 8:00 a.m. local time (0400GMT) on Saturday, a day before the election.