国际英语新闻：Ruling NAP party wins Azerbaijan parliamentary elections: exit poll

BAKU, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The ruling New Azerbaijan Party has obtained more than half of the 125 seats in the Azerbaijan National Assembly, an exit poll indicated on Sunday.

The exit poll showed that the ruling party had won the majority of votes in 67 of the 125 single-seat constituencies.

The New Azerbaijan Party won 61 of the 125 seats at the parliamentary elections in 2005. Finishing second in the 690- candidate parliamentary elections race was those with no party affiliation who grabbed 39 seats. Those representing no party in the race, different from those who did not indicate a party affiliation, obtained 43 seats.

This year's exit poll, conducted by the ELS Independent Research Center, was carried out in 1,180 of the 5,314 polling stations across Azerbaijan. There were 2,360 exit pollsters and there were 300 more helping with the tabulation at the ELS headquarters in Baku.

More than half, or 50.14 percent, of the 4.829 million registered voters turned out Sunday to vote whereas the voter turnout at the 2005 parliamentary elections was 47 percent.

The Azerbaijan Central Election Commission clarified that 2,480, 205 voters had cast their ballots on Sunday.

In all, 46,639 local and 1,029 international observers were out in the fields monitoring the parliamentary elections while 500 webcams were installed inside polling stations to provide live streamlining about the vote casting.