Five hundred thousand young Azerbaijanis will vote for the first time on 9 October.

The Head of the Secretariat of the Azerbaijani Central Elections Commission, Rovzat Gasimov, has stated that nearly half a million young people will vote for the first time in the forthcoming presidential election in the country. This constitutes around 10% of the total electorate, which is approximately five million voters. Gasimov also said that in all around 40% of the electorate are considered to be youth.

Gasimov was speaking at the launch of a project called “Vote” which is being implemented by the “Ireli” public union with the assistance of the Central Elections Commission. The launch was held earlier this week at the Park Inn Hotel in Baku. Speaking at the event, “Ireli “ Chairman Rauf Merdiyev said that the goal is to raise the turnout of the youth in the upcoming Presidential elections and to raise election awareness amongst young people voting for the first time.