CIS mission describes Azerbaijan’s presidential elections as free, democratic

Head of the mission of international observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev has described Azerbaijan’s presidential elections as free and democratic.

"We saw a high voter turnout at the presidential election, sometimes there were even queues at the polling stations," Caliber.Az quotes Lebedev as saying.

According to him, at the same time the voting was organized efficiently, and people made their choices with enthusiasm.

"It was obvious that the election commissions had done a lot of preparatory work. There was competition - all 7 candidates had higher education and extensive experience in political and public life. The CIS observer mission believes that the presidential election was fair, competitive, transparent, open, free and democratic - in full compliance with the Constitution and the Electoral Code of Azerbaijan," Sergey Lebedev emphasized.

He noted that the Azerbaijani people are friendly to the Russian people and expressed hope that this state of affairs will always be present.

Meanwhile, the head of the delegation of observers of the Russian Federation Council Grigory Karasin also assessed the presidential elections in Azerbaijan as free and democratic.

 "International observers from the Parliament (Federation Council) of the Russian Federation state that the presidential elections in Azerbaijan were held in a free, open, competitive and democratic environment," Karasin stated at a press conference in Baku.

According to him, there were queues of people at polling stations, but there was no crush, and voting was organized efficiently.

"We saw people's smiles, their hope for the future. Everything was organized almost perfectly. Voting took place in the spacious halls of institutes, schools, museums, people felt themselves the leaders of their country's destiny. International observers had full access to observe the election process," Karasin emphasized.