Azerbaijan ruling party wins snap parliamentary elections

According to exit polls, long-term president Ilham Aliyev and his ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) won a majority of seats in Azerbaijan’s snap parliamentary election.
The country started an early election on Sunday in an effort to renew its dissolved National Assembly. 1,314 candidates, of which 22% are women, were running for parliamentary seats.
A parliamentary election was initially scheduled for November 2020. However, a proposal to dissolve the parliament was passed in the assembly in December. It was signed by Aliyev, who has been in power for 17 years. Government officials said the snap polls would help speed up the country’s economic reforms.
The parliamentary polls are the sixth in Azerbaijan since the country re-gained its independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Critics say Aliyev is seeking a way to stay in power. His father, a Soviet-era KGB leader, passed the presidency to his son.
The snap elections were boycotted by the opposition, who blames Aliyev for the country’s economic slowdown. The opposition has accused the governing party of holding the vote in unfair conditions. It has also accused him of attempting to replace old discredited elites with younger candidates:
“Instead of real change, Aliyev is imitating political reforms by purging from power old members of his team who have long been hated by people”, said Ali Karimli, the leader of the opposition Popular Front party.