On October 9,2013, presidential elections will be held in the Republic of Azerbaijan. According to the current legislation, the election date is announced 60 days before the Election Day and the election campaign is launched 23 days before that date. The government of Azerbaijan is committed to fair and democratic elections that meet international standards and norms.
In order to ensure neutral observation of the election process, the government of Azerbaijan has invited a number of international and regional organizations, OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), GUAM (Organization for Democracy and Economic Development), CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), United Nations, Turkic Council, BSEC (Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation), OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, to send their observers. The elections are expected to be monitored by nearly 3000 international and much more local election observers.
The government takes measures to train local election officials for increasing their skills, organizing information sessions and courses in the regions. In cooperation with the OSCE office in Baku, the Presidential Administration and the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan implement a project to prevent unlawful intervention to the election process.
16 candidates have been registered officially by the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan so far. Assessment of the validity of the signatures submitted by other candidates continues.
More than 5000 places have been defined for the candidates to hold mass rallies in the election campaign. It has been announced in the mass media as well.
Free airing time and publication of the campaign materials have been allocated for the candidates in Public TV and official newspapers.
The government of Azerbaijan expects all international monitoring groups in their assessment of the election process, to have in view all the steps taken by the authorities to provide favorable and equal conditions for the election campaign and candidates. It also calls for unbiased and neutral attitude of the international observers during their activity while monitoring the elections.