Opposition

As of 09/15/2008 the Azerbaijan CEC(Central Election Commission) had officially registered 7 Presidential candidates for the October 15 2008 Presidential Elections. The link below shows the list of Presidential candidates including the opposition party candidates, parties affiliation and dates of registration.

http://www.cec.gov.az/en/7president2008/candidate.htm

Concerns by the opposition over having free and fair elections has resulted to recent amendments of the Azerbaijan Election code which if implemented would improve the elections process. Some of  the of the changes are; inking voters to prevent multiple voting, elimination of envelopes from the voting process, explicit prohibition against against interference with the election process and changes to the considerations and complains .http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2008/07/32174_en.pdf

Some of the amendments however, prove to be a challenge to the opposition, such as limiting their campaigning efforts by reduction of campaign time to more than half from 60 to 28 day prior to the election.