President Ilham Aliyev has been in power since 2003. (Archive)
Baku:
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan set early parliamentary elections for September 1 in a decree published on Friday, in a widely expected move that appears unlikely to radically change the composition of parliament.
Aliyev, in power since 2003, won early presidential elections in February, and his New Azerbaijan Party, which holds 69 of the 125 seats in the outgoing parliament, is expected to win a new majority in the oil-rich country, which has been courted by the West, the Russia and Turkey.
Opposition deputies in parliament are loyal to Aliyev, but some opponents outside parliament say they have faced persecution after a number of independent journalists and political activists were arrested ahead of this year’s presidential elections, which Aliyev won with more than 92% of voters. wishes.
Some of those detained faced charges for what they considered to be politically motivated crimes, including smuggling. Authorities said the arrests were not political.
Aliyev touted the success of a lightning offensive in September that retook the former breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from what Baku said were its illegitimate ethnic Armenian leaders.
Almost all of the region’s more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians have fled and Baku is now rebuilding the region amid plans to resettle it with Azerbaijanis.
Western energy companies such as BP operate in Azerbaijan, which is part of the “OPEC+” pact between the OPEC oil producers’ club and other major exporters such as Russia, to restrict production to support world prices.
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