Azerbaijan to hold snap parliamentary election on Feb.9

By Jeyhun Aliyev

BAKU (AA) - Azerbaijan is set to hold early parliamentary elections on Sunday almost two months after the legislature was dissolved by a presidential decree.

Milli Majlis, the National Assembly of Azerbaijan, is holding snap polls for the first time in its history.

On Dec. 2, with the initiative of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) a proposal to dissolve the parliament was discussed and passed in the assembly. It was approved by President Ilham Aliyev on Dec. 5.

The state officials had earlier announced the snap polls would help modernize the country's legislative branch and speed up economic reforms.

Over 1,300 registered candidates from around 20 political parties are competing in the run-up to 125 parliamentary seats.

More than 22.5% of candidates in parliamentary elections are women.

Members of the unicameral parliament are elected for a five-year term.

Over 65,000 local and more than 800 international observers have been accredited for monitoring the elections.

The election campaign, which started on Jan. 17 all around the country, is scheduled to end early morning on Saturday, a day before the polls.

Some 5.2 million registered voters will be able to cast their votes in over 5,500 polling stations in the country, according to the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan.

There is no overseas voting set for the upcoming elections, except for certain groups in the military and foreign service.

Voting is scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. local time (0400GMT) and continue until 7:00 p.m. (1500GMT).

The upcoming elections are set to be the sixth parliamentary polls in Azerbaijan since the country re-gained its independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Prior to the snap election decision, a parliamentary election had been scheduled for November 2020.