As is known, the last municipal elections in Azerbaijan were held on December 23, 2019.
Yeniavaz.com reports according to Article 211 of the Electoral Code, the term of office of municipalities is 5 years, and the calculation of the term of office of municipalities begins on the day of voting.
It follows from the requirement of the law that the next municipal elections should be held in Azerbaijan at the end of December this year.
Researcher and journalist Allahverdi Aydin, who gave a statement on this matter to the Yeniavaz.com website, says that according to Article 8.1 of the Electoral Code, the decision to call the elections must be officially published no later than 60 days before the voting day:
“The relevant decision on holding municipal elections is made by the Central Election Commission. The Central Election Commission made the relevant decision on the 2019 municipal elections 66 days ago - on October 18. However, the Central Election Commission did not make a decision on the elections, despite the fact that there are 55 days left until the end of the municipalities' term of office. As we have already noted, this contradicts the requirements of Article 8.1 of the Electoral Code." Allahverdi Aydin claims that the Electoral Code clearly states in which cases municipal elections can be postponed:
"According to the law, elections are postponed in cases where there are no candidates in the elections. In this case, the Central Election Commission did not even make a decision on the elections. Such a case was not recorded in previous years. This year, for the first time, the Electoral Commission did not make a corresponding decision on the elections on time. It seems that the leadership of the Central Election Commission has forgotten that there are municipalities in the country."

Allahverdi Aydin

Khalid Agalyev: “The electoral body must also clarify the remaining issues”

Lawyer Khalid Agalyev said in a statement to Yeniavaz.com that the decision to call the elections should be made by the Central Election Commission:
“According to the legislation, these decisions must be made no later than 60 days before the voting day. Such a decision has not yet been made. However, given that the last municipal elections were held 5 years ago, on December 23, such a decision should have been made at least a week ago. There is no clear indication of what will happen in cases where the decision on the elections is not made within the timeframe specified in the legislation. It can be noted that the legislation states that the term of office of municipalities is 5 years. At the same time, it determines that the term of office of municipalities begins on the voting day and ends on the day of the first meeting of newly elected municipalities.
According to the legislation, municipal elections, like other elections, must be held within the specified timeframe. Exceptions may be made - if martial law or a state of emergency is declared in more than 25 percent of the country's territory, elections cannot be held for 3 months after the cancellation of such a state. At the same time, municipal elections can be postponed, but this rule applies to elections that have already been scheduled. That is, if elections are announced and the required number of candidates are not registered, then municipal elections can be postponed for up to 2 months. Currently, such a situation does not exist.
The Central Election Commission is the body responsible for the preparation and holding of all elections in the country. The Commission must ensure that municipal elections are held in accordance with the law. In the current situation, the electoral body must clarify the remaining questions.

Khalid Agalyev

It should also be noted that although we tried to find out the position of the Central Election Commission on this issue, the head of the press service of the institution did not answer our phone calls.

Murad Mamedov