Referendum Held with Limited Time to Campaign - Expert

The Central Election Commission (CEC) approved the calendar plan of actions for the Referendum on changes to the Constitution of Azerbaijan on 26 September.

With the announcement of the date of the vote, campaign groups can be created. For campaigning across the country signatures of at least 2,000 voters have to be submitted.

Appeals should be considered within 5 days.

This process should be completed by 18:00 on 22 August. To register the campaign group campaigning for or against, you have to submit 40,000 signatures of voters from at least 60 electoral districts, at least 100 signatures from each.

The advantage of establishing a campaign group across the country is that it gets free air time on the Public TV and state newspapers.

To register such groups in parts of the country you have to submit signatures of not less than 100 voters in each constituency where it is supposed to campaign.

The agitation on referendum begins on September 3 and ends at 8:00 a.m. on 25 September.

The popular vote will be held September 26 from 8:00 to 19:00. By the late evening the preliminary data will be obtained by the CEC information system. CEC must announce the results until 21 October.

The head of the Institute for Democratic Initiatives (IDI) Akif Gurbanov told Turan that although the schedule corresponds to the Electoral Code, to hold a referendum little time is allotted. This limits the ability of those who are against the amendments to the Constitution.

Elections last year showed that 60 days for the election campaign and only three weeks for agitation are very little.

 "All the more so in this case we are talking about the referendum, which was suddenly announced without public debate. In the absence of political pluralism on TV channels, lack of awareness of the population, low public interest, it is difficult to initiate the establishment of agitation groups and collect 40 thousand signatures for a month," said Gurbanov.

Will IDI monitor the referendum? In answering this question Gurbanov said that because of the suddenness of the decision on the referendum, the civil society has little time to fully monitor. However, his organization, to the extent possible, will educate, provide legal assistance to voters, evaluate the work of the media, etc. -06B-