The Aliyev family has controlled Azerbaijan without opposition since 1993 and will reconfirm its power this Wednesday until at least 2031, during the first presidential elections after the forceful capture of the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in September. ‘last year. The region, internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory but with an Armenian population and a self-proclaimed republic after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was conquered by Baku in the final assault of a long and intermittent war. More than 100,000 Armenians fled the area, and in the deserted streets of their capital – Khankendi for Azerbaijan, Stepanakert for Armenia – several polling stations were deployed for elections where opponents, activists and journalists were persecuted , as well as their families. President Ilham Aliyev (Baku, 62 years old) won the elections with 92.1% of the votes, of which 54.4% were counted, according to the Central Election Commission.
Aliyev, who succeeded his father as head of power in 2003, symbolically voted in Nagorno-Karabakh’s largest city, accompanied by his wife, Azerbaijan’s first vice-president, Mehriban Aliyeva. Her husband won 86.02% of the vote in the 2018 presidential elections and the president predictably secured a fifth consecutive term on Wednesday in snap elections where all six rival candidates were close politicians of power and They had nothing but praise for their leader. During one of the election debates – Aliyev did not attend any of them – one of the candidates, Zahid Oruj, directly encouraged viewers to vote for the current president.
For their part, the two main opposition parties, Musavat and the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, withdrew their participation due to the systematic persecution of critics. According to their figures, there are around 200 political prisoners in the country’s prisons and the Popular Front of Azerbaijan has encouraged the population not to go to the polls. “We have made the decision to boycott the elections. There are no normal conditions for opposition groups to be able to act freely. We will not participate in this farce,” declared Ali Karimli during the extraordinary congress organized by his party last December.
“Azerbaijani authorities have intensified their crackdown on peaceful dissent since November with the arrest of more than 13 opponents, journalists and a human rights activist,” denounced Natalya Nozadze, Amnesty International researcher in the South Caucasus. “After the arrest of government critics, the Executive began to persecute their relatives and friends,” he said in a statement.
The activist points out that the authorities have frozen the income and bank accounts of the parents of several journalists from Abzas and Channel 13 who were arrested: “Ofelia Maharramova, the mother of the editor-in-chief of Abzascan’t afford the medication he needs because his pension and disability benefits have been frozen.
Aliyev left no room for maneuver for the opposition by unexpectedly bringing forward these elections two months ago, although they were scheduled for April 2025. In total, 6,537 polling stations were opened, including 26 in the Upper -Karabakh, and 6.5 million citizens were elected. called for elections where there were no independent international observers.
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The president vetoed the Council of Europe mission, whose Parliamentary Assembly on January 25 withdrew Baku’s powers for “failing to fulfill important commitments” signed since Aliyev came to power . The organization accuses Baku of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of last year by resuming the war “and causing the entire Armenian population to flee” from the region. ; and also denounced “a series of examples of lack of cooperation with the Council”, including the ban on its rapporteurs from meeting “people detained on alleged politically motivated charges” or the authorization to observe these elections .
Aliyev then threatened to leave the Council of Europe permanently “given the unbearable atmosphere of racism, Azeriphobia and Islamophobia that reigns within the Assembly.”
Accusations of human rights violations did not stop the European Union from strengthening ties with Azerbaijan last year. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, visited the country in the summer of 2023, when Baku had already been blocking Nagorno-Karabakh for months, “to strengthen bilateral relations, including energy cooperation “, that is, the import of Azerbaijani gas. as an alternative to Russian.
“Many citizens perceive these elections, which are taking place for the first time throughout the country, including in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, as an opportunity to express their respect and gratitude to the head of state,” he said. declared pro-government MP Malajat Ibraguimgyzy. Russian news agency Tass.
Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Russia, Polad Bulbuloglu, told the same agency that his country’s elections “could be useful (for Moscow) through the exchange of experience in organizing electoral processes.”
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