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U.S. to Finance Parallel Vote Count of Azerbaijani Presidential Elections

Politics Materials 8 May 2008 18:36 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, 8 May / corr. Trend E. Babayev, M. Aliyev/ The Azerbaijani government will finance the parallel vote count of the presidential elections in Azerbaijan, due on 15 October, through the funds allocated by the U.S for holding Democratic elections in the country.

Apart from exit-poll, the parallel vote count will be carried out in the presidential elections. According to mechanism of parallel vote count, independent observers get the copy of protocols and other documents on the results of the voting and will count votes once again.

Jonathan Henik, the representatives of U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan said to Trend on 8 May that the details of parallel count will be specified in the near future. He said that the regions which the parallel count will cover, funds to be allocated, and what percent of the voters will take part in the count is being discussed at present.

As result of the preliminary check-ups, the names of about 4.683.400 voters have been included in the voters lists.

Natig Mammadov, the secretary of the Central Election Committee of Azerbaijan said to Trend that all protocols on the results of the vote in Azerbaijan will be posted on the internet. "Therefore, everyone including observers who have not been accredited in Azerbaijan will have access to the protocols through internet," Mammadov said.

The U.S. government has allocated $3mln to conduct democratic presidential elections in Azerbaijan. According to Henik, certain amount of this fund can be allocated for the parallel vote count.

Earlier, head of the Azerbaijani presidential administration Ramiz Mehdiyev described the allocation of funds worth $3mln for Azerbaijani presidential elections by the U.S as an intervention to the internal affairs of the country.

"U.S. would not allow the intervention of any other country into its internal affairs, then why it interferes with Azerbaijani internal affairs," he said.

According to Mehdiyev, the international organizations or separate countries try to put pressure on Azerbaijan prior to elections.

"Azerbaijan will hold transparent and democratic elections," he added.

The representatives of OSCE, Council of Europe and European Commission in Azerbaijan published support program on the presidential elections in Azerbaijan.

The support program said that there is a need to improve the experience and strengthen independence of the executive bodies involved in the election process, to contribute to media, to secure independent and impartial broadcast of election campaigns of all candidates, and to support right to freedom of assembly and to increase interest of the public to the election process.

The correspondent can be contacted at:[email protected]

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