President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan has scheduled snap parliamentary elections for September 1, according to a decree published on Friday. This move, though widely anticipated, is not expected to significantly alter the composition of parliament.
Aliyev, who has been in power since 2003, secured a victory in a snap presidential election in February. His New Azerbaijan Party, which currently holds 69 of the 125 seats in the outgoing parliament, is expected to maintain its majority in the oil-rich nation, which has attracted interest from the West, Russia, and Turkey.
While opposition deputies in parliament are generally loyal to Aliyev, some opponents outside the parliament claim they have faced persecution. Several independent journalists and political activists were arrested ahead of this year’s presidential election, which Aliyev won with over 92% of the vote.
Some of the detained individuals have faced charges for what they assert are politically motivated crimes, including smuggling. The authorities, however, deny that the arrests were politically driven.
Aliyev has highlighted the success of a September military offensive that recaptured the former breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh from what Baku described as illegitimate ethnic Armenian leaders. Nearly all of the region’s over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled, and Baku is now in the process of rebuilding the area with plans to resettle it with Azerbaijanis.
Western energy companies like BP operate in Azerbaijan, which is part of the “OPEC+” agreement between OPEC oil producers and other key exporters, such as Russia, to limit output and support global oil prices.