BAKU - Azerbaijan's governing party was leading on Monday in a snap parliamentary election called by President Ilham Aliyev to consolidate power and speed up economic reforms by replacing the old guard associated with his father.
Candidates from the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan (New Azerbaijan) party won about 65 of 125 seats in the single-chamber parliament, Mazahir Panakhov, the Central Election Commission (CEC) head, said early on Monday after counting the results from about 110 districts.
A host of small parties and independents loyal to the government took almost all the rest.
On Sunday night, Vice Prime Minister and Yeni Azerbaijan Executive Secretary Ali Ahmedov congratulated his party on "yet another great victory" after exit polls put it on a course to win a majority of seats.
"We are grateful to those who have voted in support of our president's policies," Ahmedov told journalists.
The single-chamber parliament is elected every five years through voting for individual candidates in electoral districts.
Aliyev, who has been in power for 17 years, called the election in December, nine months before it was formally due.
Officials from his governing party said the move was "to support the president's policy on reforms and personnel changes".
"We are already observing a number of violations in polling stations where we have observers," the opposition Musavat Party's leader, Isa Gmbar, told Reuters News Agency. (Aljazeera)