Azerbaijan ruling party wins elections: preliminary results

BAKU. November 8. KAZINFORM Azerbaijan's ruling party has secured at least 73 seats in the country's 125-seat parliament after a vote on Sunday, according to official preliminary results; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.

The election commission announced the preliminary results after more than 80 percent of votes had been counted.

The victory will further cement the dominance of President Ilham Aliyev and his New Azerbaijan Party over the country.

Meanwhile, chairman of the Azerbaijani Central Election Commission (CEC) Mazahir Panahov said Monday that the more than 50-percent turnout rate of the 2010 Azerbaijan parliamentary elections had reflected the will of the Azerbaijani people.

The election chief said that 2,480,205 or 50.14 percent of the 4.829 million registered voters had cast their ballots this year to pick 125 deputies for the country's next National Assembly for a five-year term.

In all, 690 registered candidates were running in the 2010 parliamentary elections race; Kazinform cites Xinhua.

See www.xinhuanet.com/english2010 for full version