Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev has announced an early presidential election for February 7, 2024.
According to a decree by the presidency, the president ordered officials to hold a “snap election” earlier than the originally planned date of 2025.
Aliyev’s popularity in Azerbaijan has recently risen after the government gained full control of the Karabakh region, defeating ethnic Armenian forces. The upcoming vote is expected to extend his family’s decades-long rule.
Aliyev, aged 61, was last re-elected in 2018 for a seven-year term, winning 86 percent of the vote in a poll boycotted by major opposition parties.
With political dissent largely suppressed, he is highly likely to secure another term.
In September, Aliyev launched a swift offensive to regain control of Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenians who had governed it for over three decades, following a nine-month blockade.
Post from www.aljazeera.com rnrn