Voting starts in Azerbaijani presidential election
15/10/2008 17:39
Voting started in Azerbaijan's presidential election today with incumbent
President Ilham Aliyev expected to win his next term.
A total of 5,359
constituencies have been formed and 4.8 million voters are registered to vote,
according to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC). Along with Aliyev, six
other candidates are also competing for the office.
Polling stations across
the country opened at 8:00 a.m. (0300 GMT) and were due to close at 7:00 p.m.
(1400 GMT).
Though the opposition has said to boycott the voting, it started
quietly when polls opened across the country.
Azerbaijan has economic and
political stability, so the presidential election will be calm, said Sergei
Lebedev, Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
which will send about 400 observers to monitor the voting.
There will be
1,258 international observers from more than 60 countries or international
organizations during the election in the South Caucasus country, said the
election watchdog CEC.
"The President did a good job in the last five year
and I appreciate him for that so I voted for him," said a 67-year-old teacher in
a local university.
According earlier polls, Aliyev is almost certain to gain
a second term, extending his presidency for another five years.
The
president, 46, took office in 2003 as president after his father Heydar Aliyev's
death.
Xinhua
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