Azerbaijan ruling party wins snap vote as opposition cries foul

BAKU: Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev's party has won snap parliamentary elections, the electoral commission said Monday, as the opposition denounced widespread violations including multiple voting.

Aliyev called Sunday's vote ahead of schedule to avoid having it coincide with the COP29 climate conference that Baku is to host from November 11 to 22.

None of the elections held in the oil and gas-rich country under Aliyev's two-decade rule have been recognised as free and fair by international observers.

The electoral commission said Aliyev's Yeni Azerbaijan party won 68 seats in the 125-member legislature.

Another 45 seats were won by independent candidates widely believed to be pro-government, and 11 were obtained by nine political parties also deemed to support Aliyev's administration.

Only one opposition candidate, from the Republican Alternative Party, made it to parliament.

The opposition Musavat party said there were "mass violations" of the rules, including multiple voting.

International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the elections "did not offer voters genuine political alternatives and took place within a legal framework overly restrictive of fundamental freedoms and the media".

The observers said Monday they were concerned about "intimidation of voters and their ability to cast their vote without fearing retribution".

The "increase in arrests and detentions of journalists and civil society activists, combined with the restrictive media legal framework, resulted in widespread self-censorship and severely limited the scope for independent journalism," their statement added.

Baku has faced strong Western criticism for persecuting political opponents and suffocating independent media.

Aliyev, 62, has ruled the former Soviet republic with an iron fist since 2003 after the death of his father, Azerbaijan's Soviet-era Communist leader and former KGB general Heydar Aliyev.

He enjoys widespread popularity due to Azerbaijan's military victory over Armenian separatist forces that had controlled the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region for three decades.

Last year, Baku's troops recaptured the mountainous enclave in a lightning offensive, after which its entire ethnic Armenian population — more than 100,000 people — fled to Armenia.

With power concentrated in the presidency, Azerbaijan's parliament has a limited role in shaping affairs in the Caspian Sea nation.