Are Parents Forced to Vote in Municipal Elections? 

Baku / 22.12.19 / Turan: In connection with the municipal elections in some Baku schools, parents of students are obliged to come to the vote.

This was told Turan by the parents of students of a number of schools.

In school number 84 of the Surakhani district, class teachers also announced the need for parents to come to these schools on election day.

“My spouse was told to come to the polls with the identity card. It was stated that all parents are called, and those who do not come “will be recorded.” In this way, they want to create the appearance of “voter turnout,” said one parent who wished to remain anonymous.

However, at school number 84 they rejected this statement saying that “who and where registered will vote there.”

On election day, parents were also summoned to school number 123 of the Mardakan village and kindergarten number 96.

“We were ordered to come to the kindergarten with identity cards, and we’ll go to vote from there,” one of the parents said.

However, the school and kindergarten also denied information about the forced turnout of parents.

The executive director of the Center for Election Monitoring and Democracy Education, M. Mammadzadeh, commenting on the situation, noted that in the municipal elections, unlike the presidential and parliamentary elections, voter turnout is low.

At the last municipal election, the turnout was 38 percent.

In this situation, election commissions by various methods force public sector employees to participate in elections.

This process takes place not only on election day, but also before that - when collecting signatures in favor of candidates, Mammadzadeh said.

Turan’s attempts to get comments from the CEC failed.

In the December 23 elections, for 15,156 seats in 1,606 municipalities, over 41,000 registered candidates will fight.

A number of opposition forces refused to participate in the elections, believing that the country has no conditions for holding free and fair elections. —21C06-