Azerbaijan holds parliamentary elections on September 1 that will almost certainly be dominated by allies -- and their children -- eager to help President Ilham Aliyev further consolidate his dynastic rule.
The carefully vetted process offers Azerbaijan's 6 million-plus voters limited alternatives to Aliyev loyalists and comes early in a fifth term built for decades on petro-wealth and carefully choreographed elections, and more recently on the culmination of a generation-defining dispute with neighboring Armenia.
Many Azerbaijanis and outsiders speculated that a resolution of the "Karabakh question," ending the post-Soviet world's longest-running frozen conflict, could offer a chance for rejuvenating democratic impulses in Baku even if Aliyev remained firmly in place.
But the absence of any "genuine alternative" to the 62-year-old Aliyev's re-election in February, Baku's bitter fallout with the Council of Europe's rights- and democracy-promotion arm PACE, and its recent encouragement of Moscow and embrace of the BRICS alliance all suggest otherwise.
Moreover, the emergence of a handful of children of aging, establishment-linked lawmakers vying to replace their fathers in this weekend's parliamentary elections could portend a whole new generation of Azerbaijani elites beholden to Aliyev and his system.
And a crackdown on journalists and civil-society activists since the repatriation of Nagorno-Karabakh last year is being likened to a notorious spate of jailings and harassment a decade earlier, only broader.
"It just seems to be trying to clear everyone [else] out," Michael Runey, an adviser on democracy assessment for the intergovernmental International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), told RFE/RL. "That's really a sign of a government that's trying to wipe out any sort of independent organization in society."
He cited recent arrests including that of Bahruz Samadov, a 29-year-old Azerbaijani doctoral student abroad accused of high treason, apparently over critical statements about the 2020 war and 2023 military operations around Nagorno-Karabakh.
In metrics like representation, rule of law, and participation, Runey said, Azerbaijan already fared poorly. There were hopes that a more democratic path might open once the Karabakh conflict was resolved, he said, but "people are experiencing that this is not the case."
Instead, he warned, "the government is attempting to consolidate and close off any sort of possible avenues for democratization."
Runey said that especially since retaking Karabakh last year, "I feel like the government in Baku feels they just don't really need to placate the West anymore."
Baku's tightly controlled analytical community routinely describes Aliyev's recent moves as "independent foreign policy," as opposed to any turn away from the West and toward Russia or other authoritarian counterparts by a key oil and gas provider in an unstable corner of the former Soviet Union.
Western observers have consistently criticized elections cementing Aliyev's reign as undemocratic, and Azerbaijani votes stretching back to 2003 and as recently as 2020 have been marred by violence.
As a result, Aliyev's New Azerbaijan Party -- which is formally chaired by first lady and Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva -- and an assemblage of loyalist parties have dominated the 125-seat National Assembly.
The leading opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AXCP) is staying away from "the government's masquerade of a fraudulent election" for the seventh straight time. But the Musavat Party is participating despite serial problems like obstacles to monitoring, campaigning and media that is heavily skewed toward the ruling party, and serious election-day irregularities, saying, "Even if only five or 10 people show up, the election will be considered as held" because of the lack of any turnout threshold since 2003 .
At least a handful of next-generation elites are likely to join the existing loyalist ranks in parliament. Candidates in the September 1 vote reportedly include Samir Ahmadoglu Valiyev, a son of former lawmaker and university rector Ahmad Valiyev; Mahir Tahiroglu Suleymanli, a son of influential former lawmaker Tahir Suleymanov; and Gunay Agamali, who is running to replace her father, Fazail Agamali, a nearly 30-year parliamentary veteran and Motherland Party leader who is said to be stepping down for health reasons. Aygun Manyeva, the daughter of a former legislator who is now a member of the Central Election Commission, initially appeared on the New Azerbaijan Party list but reportedly withdrew her candidacy.
Aliyev has ruled Azerbaijan since taking over from his dying father in 2003 and won a new seven-year term in a snap vote seen by international observers as deeply flawed.
Written and with reporting by Andy Heil with additional reporting by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service
