2024 Waynakh parliamentary election
The 2024 Waynakh parliamentary election is due to be held in Waynakhia on Thursday, 21 March 2024. It will be 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 are expected to open at 03:00 and to close 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, as well not being legally excluded from the vote (such as serving a prison sentence). Waynakh citizens overseas 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
Exit poll
An exit poll is due to be conducted by TBD for the country's three largest news providers, WMC, TWM and LK, which are schedule to broadcast updates on the election, with results expected to be released at 23:30 on Thursday 21 March 2024, predicting the number of parliamentary seats each party would win.
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.