Election campaign starts in Azerbaijan

According to Interfax-Azerbaijan, the process of nomination of candidates for president by citizens with active suffrage, initiative group of voters, political parties and blocs starts on July 29.

The Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan will have to respond about ratification of the candidate within five days.

A candidate to presidents or his plenipotentiary representative gets a list for collection of at least 40,000 signatures of voters for registration of the said candidacy.

Documents for registration of the candidates will be received from August 11 until September 5. Within 10 days from the day of submission of necessary documents and signature lists to the Central Election Commission, the commission will declare the registration or rejection of registration of any candidate.

It should be noted that the final list of candidates is issued in line with the due procedures until September 20 of 2008. In turn, the agitation campaign in favor of the registered candidates starts from September 17 and ends on October 14 at 8:00 am.

The activity on the ratification of election points on the basis of information about voters, residing beyond Azerbaijan or being on a long term business trip and registered in the due diplomatic missions of the country ends before September 20, while the process of establishing voting stations for voters abroad ends before September 15.

The  executive bodies and municipalities will have to define places for billboards for agitation materials before September 15 and a site for agitation campaign before September 17.

Moreover, the commission will have to prepare ballot papers for voting before October 5 and distribute them among the okrug election commissions before October 10 and they in turn distribute them to district commissions by October 12.

On the day of elections, the voting stations will open at 8:00 am and close at 7:00 pm on October 15.

The commission will post the preliminary results on its internet website directly after receiving protocols from the okruq election commissions about the results of voting, which is made until October 17.

By October 24 the commission will have to draw conclusions of the presidential elections and submit the materials to the Constitutional Court to ratify the voting results.