Official results in Azerbaijan show that the incumbent president, Ilham Aliyev, has won 92% of the vote. This means he will now be able to serve a fifth term as president of the former Soviet republic. Aliyev has been president since 2003.
However, election observers criticised the poll. The two main opposition parties had boycotted it.
The poll was a snap election and was called by Aliyev following Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijan finally gained control over the Nagorno-Karabakh region which, though in Azerbaijani territory, had been controlled by Armenia since the breakup of the Soviet Union and had a large Armenian community. Azerbaijan has been accused of ethnic cleansing with large numbers of ethnic Armenians fleeing the region.
Aliyev had called the election to take advantage of a surge in his popularity following the military victory.
Artur Gerasymov, the head of an observer mission from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, said: Aliyev had not been ‘meaningfully challenged… [which] resulted in a contest devoid of genuine pluralism.’
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