As expected, President Ilham Aliyev’s party secured the majority of seats in the early parliamentary elections in the authoritarian Republic of Azerbaijan in the South Caucasus. According to local media reports, the New Azerbaijan party was awarded 68 of the 125 seats in parliament. According to the election commission, voter turnout was 37.24 percent. The oil and gas-rich country on the Caspian Sea, which has been internationally criticized for human rights violations and the suppression of dissidents, is an important energy supplier to the European Union.

The vote, originally scheduled for November, was brought forward because Azerbaijan is hosting the UN climate conference at that time, which is expected to attract around 80,000 representatives from all over the world. According to official reports, the election took place without incident.

The result was expected, especially since the opposition was largely not represented with its own candidates in the vote. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had repeatedly expressed massive criticism of previous elections in the country with around ten million inhabitants. The votes are considered neither fair nor free.

Aliyev, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since taking office from his father in 2003, had only been confirmed in office in February. He took advantage of the wave of patriotism following Azerbaijan’s recapture of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in September 2023. More than 100,000 Armenians had fled their homeland to the nearby motherland of Armenia at the time.