NGOs suggest election of Municipal Council of Baku

On December, 19, Alliance for development of municipalities made public its suggestions on specifying the status of the city of Baku. In accordance with the demands and recommendations of the Council of Europe and Congress of local and regional self-government of CE, the Alliance suggests adoption of a law “On the Status of Baku”.

These suggestions were put forward at a National Forum devoted to public discussions of institutional problems of local self-government in Azerbaijan.

According to the Election code, maximum population size of one municipality cannot exceed 300 thousand people while about three million reside in the capital. The Alliance suggested to exclude from the legislation the regulations which obstruct forming an integrated municipality in Baku where 52 boards of local self-government are functioning today.

The Alliance considers it necessary to specify the conditions of election of Municipal Council of Baku and electoral quotient from administrative units in Mayor’s office in the Election code.

Distribution of power between the executive authority and Municipal Council of Baku, coordination of their interrelationship and activities must be clearly stipulated in the law “On the Status of Baku”, the activists consider.

Azerbaijan is the only country in Europe where there is still no integrated Mayor’s office in the capital.

Ilgar Mamedov, Co-chairman of “REAl” movement, spoke in support of holding election of Mayor of Baku in 2013, concurrently with the presidential election, “Contact online news” reports.

Members of NGOs think that clarifying the question of the status of Baku can solve the problem of a number of ownerless objects in the capital. In particular, Nariman Agaev, Chairman of Research Center of Stable Development, declared that “the status of Baku is still unspecified while there are a lot of problems needing solution”, “AZE.az” reports.