BAKU – Azerbaijanis are heading to the polls on Sunday in an early parliamentary election that will determine the composition of the country’s 125-seat National Assembly.
More than 6.4 million registered voters began casting their ballots at 8:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT). The polls will remain open until 7:00 p.m. (1500 GMT).
“A total of 990 candidates are registered for the snap parliamentary elections, with 305 nominated by political parties,” said Mazahir Panahov, Chairman of Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission (CEC), during a press conference marking the start of the elections.
Mr. Panahov also noted that 598 international observers, along with 112,749 registered local observers, will be monitoring the elections.
The early election follows President Ilham Aliyev’s decision on June 28 to dissolve the government and set September 1 as the election date. This rescheduling was made to avoid overlapping with the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will be held in Baku from November 11-22.
