Ilham Aliyev gained a fifth time period within the snap presidential elections, receiving over 93% of the votes on Wednesday, based on exit polls.
Aliyev secured 93.9% of the vote, U.S.-based Oracle Advisory Group’s consultant George Brinbaum advised a news briefing within the capital Baku after voting concluded at 7 p.m. native time (1500GMT).
Aliyev’s closest competitor, unbiased candidate Zahid Oruj, obtained a mere 1.8%.
Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission later declared that 4.97 million individuals participated within the election, which implies a 76.73% voter turnout. About 6.5 million residents have been eligible to vote, together with these based mostly overseas.
The president and first girl Mehriban Aliyeva went to Karabakh to forged their ballots within the area’s important metropolis of Khankendi.
For the primary time in Azerbaijan’s post-Soviet historical past, 26 polling stations opened in Karabakh. The enclave has been largely abandoned after its complete ethnic-Armenian inhabitants – greater than 100,000 individuals – fled to Armenia after Baku’s takeover.
At a polling station in central Baku, pensioner Shalalya Abbasova, 68, stated she voted for Aliyev as a result of he “did what seemed impossible – accomplished our dream, liberated the occupied territories.”
Last month, Aliyev referred to as the Karabakh victory “an epochal event unparallelled in Azerbaijan’s history”.
Supporters have praised Aliyev for turning a rustic as soon as considered a Soviet backwater right into a flourishing power provider to Europe.
Aliyev, 62, was first elected president in 2003 after the demise of his father Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB officer who had dominated Azerbaijan since 1993.
He was re-elected in 2008, 2013 and in 2018, with 86% of the votes.
In 2009, Aliyev amended the nation’s structure so he may run for a limiteless variety of presidential phrases, a transfer criticized by rights advocates who say he may turn out to be president for all times.
In 2016, Azerbaijan adopted constitutional amendments that prolonged the president’s time period in workplace to seven years from 5.
The president appointed his spouse Mehriban Aliyeva as the primary vice chairman.
Around six million voters are registered for the election being monitored by observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Source: www.dailysabah.com