Baku hosted a press conference on Saturday regarding the upcoming snap parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, scheduled for September 1.

Mazahir Panahov, Chairman of Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission (CEC), provided journalists with the latest updates on the preparations for the elections and related statistics.

The CEC Chairman reported that there are a total of 125 parliamentary seats available in Azerbaijan’s Milli Majlis, with an equal number of election constituencies established nationwide.

“A total of 6,421,960 people are expected to cast their ballots during the elections. Of the voters, 47.57% are men and 52.43% are women,” he stated.

Mazahir Panahov mentioned that all necessary conditions have been created to allow citizens to exercise their voting rights. According to him, a total of 6,478 polling stations are prepared for the elections, comprising 6,343 permanent and 135 temporary ones.

The CEC Chairman highlighted that 990 candidates are contesting for parliamentary seats, adding that 305 of the approved candidates were nominated by 25 political parties.

He underlined that a total of 112,749 domestic observers, along with 598 international observers from 51 international organizations and 69 countries, have been accredited by the CEC to monitor the elections.

The CEC Chairman announced that 227 individuals from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and another 61 from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) have been accredited by the commission to observe the process.

“We are closely cooperating with the OSCE/ODIHR. They will present a final report together with the OSCE PA,” he added.

According to the CEC Chairman, three organizations have been registered to conduct exit polls during the snap parliamentary elections.

“These organizations are the Social Research Center, the Citizens’ Labor Rights Protection League, and the “Taraggi” Social Research Public Union, which will conduct their activities in over 2,500 locations,” he noted.