Azerbaijan’s parliamentary election set to reinforce Presidential party’s power

• Previous elections since independence from the Soviet Union have not been fully free or fair.
• President Ilham Aliyev’s New Azerbaijan party dominates 69 out of 125 seats in parliament.
• The election was postponed to avoid COP29 climate talks in Baku.

Azerbaijan opened polls on Sunday for a snap parliamentary election, marking the first since regaining full control of a former breakaway territory in a lightning offensive last year.

Previous elections since independence from the Soviet Union have not been considered fully free or fair. The vote for the Milli Mejlis parliament is unlikely to bring significant changes, as President Ilham Aliyev’s New Azerbaijan party continues to dominate.

Ilham Aliyev took over from his father, who ruled Azerbaijan from 1993 until he died in 2003. Both have led the country with heavy-handed rule, suppressing dissent as the nearly 10 million people living on the shores of the Caspian Sea enjoyed growing wealth from the country’s vast oil and natural gas reserves.

The ruling party controls 69 of the 125 seats in parliament, with most of the remaining seats held by small pro-government parties or independents. The Musavat party, the main opposition group, has put forward 34 candidates for Sunday’s election, though only 25 of them were registered. The Republican Alternative opposition party is running 12 candidates.

According to the constitution, the election was due in November. However, Aliyev ordered it to be held two months earlier to avoid coinciding with the United Nations climate talks, known as COP29, which will be hosted in the capital, Baku.

The election comes nearly a year after Azerbaijani forces reclaimed the Karabakh region in a military operation. Since 1994, ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia have controlled the region and established a self-declared government. Most of the region’s 120,000 Armenian residents fled during the offensive.

The national Electoral Commission reports that 50 organizations will conduct observer missions. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has the largest observer contingent, will present its preliminary assessment of the election on Monday.

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