Azerbaijan all set to hold presidential election Wednesday amid eight contesting candidates

BAKU (Azerbaijan), April 7(APP)::Azerbaijan is all set to hold presidential election in a free, fair and transparent manner on April 11 (Wednesday) with registration of eight candidates contesting for the slot including incumbent President Ilham Aliyev.
Ilham Aliyev, Chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party is ruling the country since 2003 and if wins again, he will become the president for next seven years.
The Election Commission of Azerbaijan has established around 5641 polling stations that will operate in the presidential elections. Of the total, 5,426 are permanent and 215 are temporary polling stations, set-up countrywide.
The authorities concerned have also established 41 polling stations outside Azerbaijan for the presidential election and as many as 13,820 voters are expected to cast their vote in these polling stations.
In order to ensure transparency in election, installation of web cams has also been made in many polling stations. It has been reported that monitoring of election process via web cameras was started about 10 years ago in Azerbaijan. Whereas for the first time, 500 cameras were installed for the elections, afterwards the number of these devices was increased to 1000. The target is to create an opportunity to watch the election process live in 20 percent of the polling stations. Cameras are installed with possibility to watch what is going on inside the station until the polling stations are closed.
Meanwhile, it has been further reported that Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has accredited 871 international observers including journalists to monitor the presidential election in the country. They are citizens of 59 countries and represent 58 international organizations.
Around 56,864 local observers have been accredited so far, and 1,962 of them were accredited by the CEC and will monitor the election throughout the country and 54,902 observers have the right to observe the elect within the limits of the relevant constituency. Moreover, 5,099 members who have consultative voting rights were appointed to the lower election commissions by political parties.
During visit to different polling stations on Saturday, it has been found that elaborate arrangements have been made to ensure transparency in voting process.
Talking to APP, the representatives of Election Commission, Lala Alieva, Sevinj Mahammadova and Kadija said the the polling would start at 8.00 a.m and will end at 7.00 p.m. More than 5,000 thousands votes from the polling stations locality have been registered and they expressed the hope of more than 80 per cent turn out.
They further said police personnel would be deployed outside these polling stations to ensure security. The election commission representatives also mentioned about a special chemical and laser light gadget to curb any chance of fraudulant activity.
The other candidates contesing the presidential election are Razi Nurullayev – political analyst, former deputy chairman of Azerbaijani Popular Front Party.
Sardar Jalaloglu – politician, chairman of Azerbaijan Democratic Party. Previously ran for president in 2013.
Zahid Oruc – member of the Parliament of Azerbaijan since 2001. Former deputy chairman of Motherland Party. Ran for president in 2013 and placed 5th.
Hafiz Hajiyev – chairman of the Modern Equality Party, previously participated in the 2003, 2008 and 2013 elections.
Gudrat Hasanguliyev – member of the Parliament of Azerbaijan, chairman of the Whole Azerbaijan Popular Front Party. Previously participated in the 2003, 2008 and 2013 elections.
Araz Alizada – member of the Parliament of Azerbaijan, chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Azerbaijan. Previously participated in the 2013 presidential elections and finished seventh.
Faraj Guliyev – member of the Parliament of Azerbaijan, chairman of the National Revival Movement Party. Previously participated in the 2013 presidential elections and finished eighth.