AZERBAIJAN: Election to extend rule of President Ilham Aliyev's party

Record ID: 217960

  • Title: AZERBAIJAN: Election to extend rule of President Ilham Aliyev's party
  • Date: 8th November 2010
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF VOTERS BEING REGISTERED (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 23rd November 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Azerbaijan
  • Country: Azerbaijan
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA413W1NOQOPAQBTLV87TH25V0L
  • Story Text: The oil-producing former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan voted in a parliamentary election on Sunday (November 7) that the opposition says is stage-managed to give victory to loyalists of President Ilham Aliyev.
    Rights groups accuse the ruling party of curbing democratic freedoms while enjoying protection from Western criticism because of Baku's strategic importance as an oil and gas exporter and transit route for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
    Aliyev's Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) says it sees no "worthy competitors" in the race for the 125-seat parliament.
    "We have voted for the parliament which will serve its people, which will pass the laws aimed at implementing Azerbaijan's rights and freedoms into life," Baku resident Elmira Suleimanova said after casting her ballot in the polling station.
    But the opposition is already crying foul.
    Aliyev has firmly consolidated power since succeeding his father, long-serving leader Heydar Aliyev, in 2003. Heydar's portrait and words adorn schools, government buildings and polling stations across the country, in a personality cult the opposition says has made dissent dangerous.
    Monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have expressed concern over what they describe as credible reports of intimidation and the disqualification of candidates.
    The younger Aliyev has presided over an oil-fuelled economic boom. The capital Baku is blossoming with construction and the opulence of an emerging jet set, masking, critics say, an ever-widening gap between rich and poor.
    The government says projects by oil majors including BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron have brought better living standards for all, but the International Monetary Fund says the oil-dependent economy should be diversified.
    The authorities also argue they have also brought long-term stability to the mainly Muslim country of 9 million people, located in the volatile South Caucasus bordering Turkey, Iran and Russia, and at the threshold of Central Asia.
    But Western diplomats are unnerved by a 90-percent hike in military spending ordered by Aliyev for 2011, with Azerbaijan locked for two decades in an unresolved conflict with neighbouring Armenia over the rebel region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
    Ethnic Armenians in the mountain enclave broke away from Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union collapsed, and Azerbaijan frequently threatens to take it back by force. The past two years have seen the worst skirmishes on the frontline since a ceasefire ended all-out war in 1994.
    Polls close at 7 p.m. (1500 GMT) and official preliminary results are expected to follow within hours.
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