Azerbaijan’s ruling party won a majority of seats in Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections, according to preliminary results from the country’s election authority, reported Anadolu Agency.

Based on the results from 125 constituencies and 5,573 polling stations, the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) won 70 seats in the Milli Majlis or National Assembly, while independent candidates won 44 seats, and other parties captured the remaining 11 seats.

The results were off by a few seats from Sunday’s exit polls.

Under the law, the election commission must check and finalise the results of Sunday’s polls by Feb 29 at the latest.

Some 2.55 million people voted on Sunday, a turnout of 47.8 percent.

Earlier, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry congratulated Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (below) and the ruling party on their election success.

A total of 1,314 candidates competed in the election, including almost 300 women.

The 246 candidates were nominated by 19 political parties, while 1,057 others were self-nominated, and 11 candidates were nominated by initiative groups.

More than 130 international media outlets from 47 countries covered the snap elections, and over 77,000 local and 883 foreign observers were accredited to monitor the polls.

Over 35,000 local observers were representatives of political parties. International observers represented 58 countries and 59 organisations. - Bernama