BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Azerbaijani voters cast their ballots Sunday in the country's parliamentary election under close scrutiny of international observers, and the major opposition bloc claimed there have been frauds that could undermine the integrity of the voting.

The chairman of Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission, Mazahir Panahov, declares the parliamentary poll started in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, November 6, 2005.

    About 5,100 polling stations across the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation opened at 08:00 local time (0400 GMT) for Azerbaijanis to elect a new parliament, or the Milli Mejlis. Some 1,541 candidates are vying for places in the 125-seat parliament, which will sit for five years.

    At the stations, invisible ink was applied on voters' thumbs after election officials checked their documents. The ink, indelible and detectable by ultraviolet monitors, is used to prevent frauds such as voting twice.

    Also on site were more than 1,500 observers from international bodies like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

    In Baku, Bezborodov Nikolai, a CIS observer from Russia, told Xinhua that CIS observers were inspecting polling stations at random and no fraud had been reported so far.

    The claim, however, was disputed by the major opposition bloc.

    Ali Kerimli, chairman of the Azadliq (freedom) campaign which groups the Musavat party, the Popular Front and the Democratic Party, said after casting his vote that his bloc has recorded "numerous violations" during the voting and will stage protest if the results of the election is undermined.

    He promised that the protest will be done peacefully.

    The opposition bloc said it expected to win 75 seats in the 125-member parliament, but analysts dismissed the goal as unattainable.

Ali Kerimli, chairman of the opposition Azadliq (Freedom) bloc, casts his ballots at a polling station in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, November 6, 2005.

    Security was tightened in the capital city, where 15,000 police were deployed for the parliamentary ballot, being held three years before the next presidential election and considered a key event for the former Soviet republic.

    President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Haydar in 2003,has repeatedly pledged the parliamentary vote will be fair.

    He had asked the parliament to scrap a ban on foreign funded non-government groups monitoring the poll and to include voters' addresses in the voter list.

    Aliyev said after he voted at a polling station in a Baku school that the election is very important for the country as it embodies democracy in Azerbaijan.

    "The election will be conducted in a calm manner and the Azerbaijani society will remain stable," Aliyev said.

    Independent candidate Ziad Samedzade deemed the election honest.

    "I voted for the future of Azerbaijan and hope for stability inmy country both politically and economically," Samedzade told Xinhua.

    Azerbaijan, saddled between Iran and the restive Russian Caucasus region, is a predominantly Muslim state of about eight million people.

    Western corporations have invested billions of US dollars developing Caspian Sea oil and the capital Baku is the starting point for a new oil pipeline to the West.

    The parliamentary poll was preceded by months of street protestand arrests as opposition activists held rallies in Baku nearly every weekend in the run-up to the election. Most of them were dispersed by police who cited a ban on downtown protest.

    Less than three weeks before the vote, Aliev's government announced the discovery of an alleged coup conspiracy led by RasulGuliyev, an Azadliq leader in exile. Several government ministers and other high-ranking officials were jailed.

    Guliyev, a former parliamentary speaker who was accused of stealing state funds and has been living in the United States for the past decade, was briefly arrested in late October in Ukraine on a fueling stop when he chartered a plane to return to Azerbaijan and then headed for London.

    Preliminary results of the election are expected to be releasedwithin a day after voting concludes at 19:00 (1500 GMT). Enditem