Azerbaijani observers accuse Central Election Commission of understating number of eligible voters
Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has announced that there were 6.3 million eligible voters in the country. Independent experts argue that the number was much higher.
According to the CEC, a total of 6,332,229 people were included on the single voter list nationwide, of which 47.59% were men and 52.41% were women.
The deadline for compiling the permanent list was Wednesday. The CEC’s chair, Mazahir Panahov, said the number has increased by 38,000 since 2025.
The CEC’s official website noted that permanent voter lists were compiled based on information provided by the relevant government agencies.
‘Throughout the process, close cooperation was maintained with the relevant agencies of the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Justice, local executive bodies, and municipalities’.
The figure was met with criticism online.
Independent economy expert Rovshan Aghayev claimed on social media that 15% of potential eligible voters were not accounted for by the CEC, citing population censuses.
‘According to the CEC, a total of 6.3 million voters are included in the permanent list. However, according to official statistics, the number of people over 18 is just over 7.5 million. This means that 1.2 million people are missing from the lists’, he wrote.
Aghayev noted that possible reasons could include a significant proportion of people emigrating or problems with residence and registration, ‘which are difficult to verify’.
‘In fact, for a country without real elections, this isn’t even considered a serious problem. But the fact is, statistics are necessary to assess the real demographic and population situation’, Aghayev continued.
Issues surrounding discrepancies in numbers of eligible voters announced arise on a yearly basis in Azerbaijan.
In February 2024, Anar Mammadli, the now-detained head of the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, before his detention, told independent media outlet Meydan TV that the CEC does not have ‘statistical information’ to support the numbers of eligible voters they announce.
‘For example, how many citizens have returned to the country over the past three years? How many people have been eligible to vote over the past three years? It's difficult for us to know because there is no information’, Mammadli questioned.
An independent expert speaking on condition of anonymity told OC Media that it was likely that population figures available could be inaccurate, ‘but we don’t have any evidence to prove it, even indirectly’.
‘Only the government can answer that question. The second possibility is that there are more people with dual citizenship. But how many? One million or two million? Again, only the government can answer that question’, the expert concluded.
Aytan Farhadova
