2024 Waynakh parliamentary election

  

2024 Waynakh parliamentary election

21 March 2024
All 396 seats in the Parliament of Waynakhia
Opinion polls
Registered	▲ 1,926,360
Turnout	▼ 0
Reporting	99.95% as of 18:30 Waynakhia Standard Time (UTC+4)
A map presenting the results of the election, by party of the MP elected from each constituency (of those called by 18:00 local time on 23 March)
Incumbent President Şamil Aydamir Waynakh Democratic Party

The 2024 Waynakh parliamentary election was held in Waynakhia on Thursday, 21 March 2024. It was the country's eighth parliamentary election since it created its parliamentary government at the end of the Caucasus Wars, with the previous one having been held in June 2020, triggered automatically due to the Local Government Act 2019's reorganisation of the administrative structure and constituencies of the country.

Background

After winning the presidential vote and gaining a majority in parliament in the 2019 elections, the Waynakh Democratic Party took power after defeating the Waynakh National Party, its main rival and the incumbent party from 2014-19, before expanding its majority in 2020 with a landslide victory following a snap parliamentary election, giving it 326 of the 400 available seats, the highest number of parliamentary seats won by a single party in Waynakh history. The election took place shortly after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic crisis, with the WDP's elimination of the virus from the country being the main reason for its success. However, during the five-year term, a fall in support was observed, particularly in parts of the central provinces, due to the poor handling of COVID-19's return to the community in late 2021, and the government's focus on the Highland Recovery, with little perceived progress on other key issues such as healthcare.

Date of the election

The deadline for nominations for the election was Thursday 15 February 2024, five weeks before the election, with political campaigning until Wednesday 20 March, the day before polling was scheduled to begin. Polling stations across Waynakhia opened at 03:00 local time and closed at 23:50 on Thursday 21 March. The election's holding date, the third Thursday of March, marked a return to the Waynakh standard, after the 2020 election had been pushed back to June due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Voting eligibility

To be eligible to vote, a person had to be registered on or before Thursday 1 February, and was required by the Constitution to be both a Waynakh citizen or permanent resident, and to be at least 17 years old before the date of the election. People were also required to be registered at a permanent address in order to be eligible to vote, as well as not being legally excluded from the vote (such as serving a prison sentence). Waynakh citizens overseas with a registered permanent address in the country were eligible to vote, with online registration having enabled this - a secure online voting system was set up for both the presidential and parliamentary election, with no technical details shared publicly in order to maintain security.

Contesting parties and candidates

Most candidates for the parliamentary election are representatives of political parties, which must be registered with the Electoral Register of Waynakhia; all candidates outside of a party are required to use the Independent label.

Opinion polling

Anonymous opinion polling across the country had been conducted prior to the election, with the most recent opinion polls having taken place 7, 14, 21, 42 and 56 days before the election. Results of the polls were calculated both nationally and by constituency.

Results of pre-election polls

Parties	Results as of 14 March	Results as of 29 February	Results as of 25 January
Waynakh Democratic Party
Waynakh National Party
Islamic Party of Waynakhia
Qumuq Party of Waynakhia
Socialist Party of Waynakhia
Green Party of Waynakhia
Adat Party of Waynakhia
Northern Party of Waynakhia
Independent
Final prediction

Exit poll

An exit poll was conducted by the Electoral Commission for the country's three largest news providers, WMC, TWM and LK, which were scheduled to broadcast updates on the election, with results released shortly after 23:30 local time on Thursday 21 March 2024, predicting the number of parliamentary seats each party would win. The poll concluded that the incumbent Waynakh Democratic Party was expected to win ??? seats.

Results

Results of the election are scheduled to be released no later than 28 March, with all votes due to be counted by the end of that day, excluding exceptional situations.

Since the 1999 parliamentary election, vote counting has been conducted in the smallest constituency by number of registered voters, with the rest of the country beginning to count votes once results from the smallest constituency are released. In both 2019 and 2020, the smallest constituency had been Şirdi-Moxk, in Noxchi-Moxk Province, with 109 registered voters; in 2024, the smallest constituency was Mälxista, Galay-Chazh Province, with 14 registered voters. The constituency had been created in 2020 and was one of six in the 2020 election with zero registered voters, having been represented in Parliament from 2020-24 by the MP from neighbouring T'iira.

Polls closed at 23:50 local time on Thursday 21 March 2024, with vote counting beginning from midnight on Friday 22 March in Mälxista, monitored by international election observers. The constituency's turnout was 100%, with all 14 registered voters casting a ballot; the constituency's results were confirmed at 00:06, with the WDP winning 11 of the 14 votes. Vote counting began across the rest of the country after the result was announced, and continues across the country as of 16:30 local time on 22 March, with just over half of the country's constituencies announcing results by this time.

Unofficial final results appeared at 18:00 on Monday 25 March, after the final constituencies released their vote counts, with 295 constituencies announcing that the incumbent WDP had won the largest number of votes; this was slightly below the exit poll's estimate. The opposition party Adat, which had not existed at the 2020 election, was declared the winner in 41 constituencies, including five in the capital, Sölƶa-Ġala, as well as winning the city of Ẋalxa-Marta, in a major change from opinion and exit poll results. It became the second largest party in Parliament, winning one more seat than the WNP, the traditional main rival of the WDP. Even though the incumbent party had won 295 seats, some analysts had described the WDP's unexpected loss of the city's constituency as an indicator of falling support - Ẋalxa-Marta, along with several other settlements in Marta and Shela provinces, is a key seat, with all major political parties making significant efforts to win it.

Official final results are due to be released before the end of 28 March.