Bolstered by the recent military victory in Nagorno-Karabash, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday called early presidential elections for February 7, 2024, according to a decree published by the president of this country in the Caucasus, AFP and Agerpres reported.

Aliyev, who has been in power since 2003 and succeeded his deceased father, ordered “to organize early elections (for the post of) president of Azerbaijan,” asking the election commission to “ensure the organization of elections on February 7, 2024,” the official document said.

Elections have been set for 2025, but President Aliyev looks set to capitalize on his popularity at the highest level after a lightning offensive against Armenian separatists that allowed him to retake the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in September.

About 75% of Azerbaijanis approve of Aliyev’s handling of the conflict, according to a poll by the country’s Center for Social Research, a public institution. Almost the entire Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, more than 100,000 out of a total registered population of 120,000, has since fled to Armenia.

Aliyev rules Azerbaijan with an iron fist

Ilham Aliyev, 61, who succeeded his father Heydar Aliyev, rules this hydrocarbon-rich former Soviet republic with a strong hand and suppresses any opposition. Even if critics have condemned the authoritarian tendencies of the Aliyev regime, his power remains intact.

President Aliyev held a referendum in 2009 to approve constitutional amendments that allowed for unlimited presidential mandates. A new amendment to the Constitution in 2016 extended the president’s term of office to seven years. In the same year, he appointed his wife Mehiban Aliyeva to the post of first vice president.

In fact, although elections are nominally held in Azerbaijan, the country is considered a de facto dictatorship, where human rights are not respected and political freedoms do not exist.

This has led some geopolitical experts to note that the European Union’s plans to significantly increase natural gas imports from Azerbaijan following its energy separation from Russia are merely replacing dependence on one brutal dictator for another.