Last week, the deputy chair of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party, Ali Akhmedov, said that Aliyev planned to run for a fourth consecutive term. “No-one knows what the true reason for calling a snap vote is,” political anayst Hikmet Hadjizade told AFP. In 2016, Azerbaijan adopted controversial constitutional amendments, extending the president’s term in office to seven years from five. Cementing his family’s decades-long grip on power, the president last year appointed his wife Mehriban Aliyeva as first vice president. Energy-rich Azerbaijan, whose military spending exceeds Armenia’s entire state budget, has repeatedly threatened to take back the breakaway region by force.

Source: The Guardian February 05, 2018 12:33 UTC