MINSK, 4 November (BelTA) – The speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament is expected to visit Belarus in early 2016, BelTA learned from Vitaly Busko, Chairman of the International Affairs Commission of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus. Vitaly Busko was part of the CIS mission sent to monitor the latest elections to the Azerbaijani parliament.
While in Azerbaijan Vitaly Busko met with MPs from various countries, top officials of the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan, representatives of political parties, public organizations, and mass media. The Belarusian MP also visited polling stations. Among other things the sides discussed preparations for a visit of the Azerbaijani parliament’s speaker to Belarus. The visit is tentatively scheduled for early 2016. “Prior to that we would like to organize a visit of the Belarus parliament’s group of friendship on cooperation with the Azerbaijan parliament to Azerbaijan for the sake of discussing the content of the forthcoming visit,” explained Vitaly Busko.
Azerbaijan is a presidential republic, with the unicameral parliament exercising the legislative power in the country. Members of the parliament are elected using a majority election system via total, equal, and direct voting as well as free, personal and secret ballots. Elections to the parliament are held every five years on the first Sunday of November.
The latest elections to the Azerbaijani parliament took place on 1 November. As many as 767 candidates representing 15 political forces ran for 125 parliamentary seats. According to preliminary data, the ruling party of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev won the elections.
In accordance with the law the Central Election Commission has 20 days to present the final results. After that the official results have to be approved by the Constitutional Court.