After Karabakh war
\n BAKU
\nAzerbaijan will hold snap leadership elections Wednesday with President Ilham Aliyev poised to secure a fifth term on a wave of popularity fueled by his army\u2019s sweeping victory over Armenian separatists.
\nThe strongman was heralded after his troops recaptured the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September from Armenian rebels that controlled the enclave for three decades.
\nCalling the victory \u201can epochal event unparallelled in Azerbaijan\u2019s history,\u201d Aliyev said last month that the country would hold presidential elections on all its territory for the first time.
\n\u201cThe elections will mark the beginning of a new era\u201d for the country, he said.
\nThe lightning operation saw the entire ethnic-Armenian population of more than 100,000 people flee to Armenia.
\nAliyev responded to Western criticism with angry rhetoric, and last autumn he snubbed peace talks with Armenia that were to be attended by German and French leaders.
\nOn Thursday, he accused France of \u201cadding fuel to the fire\u201d in the volatile Caucasus region by pursuing \u201canti-Azerbaijani policy.\u201d
\nHe also threatened to withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe rights watchdog, after refusing to invite its observers to monitor Wednesday\u2019s elections.
\nThe vote, which Aliyev called a year ahead of schedule, is being boycotted by the oil-rich nation\u2019s main opposition parties.
\n\u201cThere are no conditions in the country for the conduct of free and fair elections,\u201d said Ali Kerimli, leader of the opposition National Front party.
\nSupporters have praised Aliyev for turning a republic once thought of as a Soviet backwater into a flourishing energy supplier to Europe.
\nBut critics say he has crushed the opposition and suffocated independent media.
\n\u201cAll fundamental rights are being violated in the country, opposition parties can\u2019t function normally, freedom of assembly is restricted, media are under government pressure, and political dissent is being suppressed,\u201d Kerimli said.
\nIndependent analyst Najmin Kamilsoy said the electoral climate in Azerbaijan was marked by a \u201ccolossal asymmetry in favor of Aliyev, coupled with the elimination of all potential opponents by repressions.\u201d
\n\u201cThere is a total absence of competition \u2014 a sustained standstill,\u201d he said.
\nIn recent months, Azerbaijani authorities intensified a crackdown on independent media, arresting several critical journalists who have exposed graft at high levels.
\n\u201cThe intention is very clear. They do not want opposition voices,\u201d said Giorgi Gogia, the Human Rights Watch associate director for the Caucasus.
\nHe called the coming elections \u201can exercise in futility\u201d with a predictable outcome since \u201cthere isn\u2019t a legitimate or viable opposition challenge to President Aliyev\u2019s leadership.\u201d Aliyev, 62, was first elected president in 2003 after the death of his father Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB officer and communist-era leader who had ruled Azerbaijan since 1993.
\nHe was re-elected in 2008, 2013, and 2018 in elections that were denounced by opposition parties as rigged.
\nIn 2009, Aliyev amended the country\u2019s constitution so he could run for an unlimited number of presidential terms, a move criticized by rights advocates who say he could become a president for life.
\nIn 2016, Azerbaijan adopted controversial constitutional amendments that extended the president\u2019s term in office to seven years from five.
\nCementing his family\u2019s decades-long grip on power, the president has appointed his wife Mehriban Aliyeva as first vice president.
\nPolls monitored by observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) open at 0400 GMT.
\nPreliminary results are expected to be released several hours after voting ends at 1500 GMT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After Karabakh war BAKU Azerbaijan will hold snap leadership elections Wednesday with President Ilham Aliyev poised to secure a fifth term on a wave of popularity fueled by his army\u2019s sweeping victory over Armenian separatists. The strongman was heralded after his troops recaptured the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September from Armenian rebels that controlled the enclave […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-385308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n