President Aliyev’s New Azerbaijan Get together is predicted to win a brand new majority within the oil-rich nation’s legislature.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has known as snap parliamentary elections for September 1 which might be unlikely to seriously change the legislature’s make-up.
On Friday, Aliyev issued a decree ordering the dissolution of parliament, which is dominated by his New Azerbaijan get together.
The 62-year-old president, who has been in energy since 2003, won a fifth presidential term in February. That vote was set to be held in 2025.
His get together, which holds 69 of 125 seats within the outgoing parliament, is predicted to win a brand new majority within the oil-rich nation, which has been courted by the West, Russia and Turkey.
Western power corporations corresponding to BP function in Azerbaijan, which is get together to the OPEC+ pact between the OPEC oil producers’ membership and different key exporters corresponding to Russia to limit output to assist world costs.
Azerbaijan, which is reliant on revenues from fossil fuels, will host the United Nations local weather change summit, referred to as the Convention of the Events or COP29 from November 11-22.
Lawmakers final week requested Aliyev to dissolve parliament and name the elections two months forward of schedule to keep away from holding it throughout a significant worldwide occasion. The Constitutional Court docket accepted the change on Thursday, which was criticised by opposition events.
Worldwide observers had raised questions in regards to the validity of the presidential election and the counting of ballots.
With energy concentrated within the presidency, parliament has a restricted function in shaping affairs within the Caspian Sea nation.
Whereas some opposition deputies in parliament are loyal to Aliyev, critics have stated they’ve confronted persecution after a string of impartial journalists and political activists had been arrested upfront of this yr’s presidential election, which Aliyev received with extra by 92 % of the vote.
Aliyev has touted the success of a lightning offensive in September wherein Azerbaijan retook the previous breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenian forces.
Virtually all the area’s greater than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled and Baku is now rebuilding the area amid plans to resettle it with Azerbaijanis.