Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday called early presidential elections for 7 February.
Aliyev, 61, was last re-elected in 2018 for a seven-year term. He won a reported 86 per cent of the vote in a poll boycotted by the main opposition parties.
In September, after a nine-month blockade, he ordered a lightning offensive to wrest full control of Nagorno-Karabakh from the ethnic Armenians who had ruled it for more than three decades.
It was Baku’s second successful offensive into ethnic Armenian-controlled territory in three years. Almost all of the region’s 120,000 or so ethnic Armenians fled as a result of the military conflict.
Thanks to his country’s oil wealth, Aliyev has forged a strong alliance with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, while managing to maintain a working relationship with both Russia and the West.
Western energy companies such as BP (BP.L) are heavily influenced by Azerbaijan, which is a signatory to the OPEC+ pact between the OPEC club of oil producers and other key exporters such as Russia to limit production to support world prices.
Aliyev has led Azerbaijan since 2003, when he succeeded his father Heydar. A constitutional referendum held in 2009 left him with no term limits.
At least six independent journalists have been arrested in recent weeks, including three from Abzas Media, an independent online publication known for its investigative journalism.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranks Azerbaijan 151st out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index; international press freedom groups have called the arrests an attempt to silence reports of corruption.
