BAKU, Dec 15, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Azerbaijan's ruling party on Friday nominated

incumbent President Ilham Aliyev for re-election next year, a move expected
to extend the decades-long authoritarian rule of the Aliyev family.

The 61-year-old has governed the energy-rich country with an iron fist since
2003, when he succeeded his father, Heydar, a former KGB officer and
Communist-era boss.

Aliyev last week called the snap leadership contest for February 7 next year.
Presidential elections had previously been scheduled for 2025.

His popularity is soaring after Azerbaijan's military recaptured the
breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenian separatists in a lightning
offensive in September.

On Friday, Aliyev's Yeni Azerbaijan party nominated him for re-election
during the party's governing council meeting, an AFP journalist reported.

"This is a decision not only of our party, but of the entire people," the
party's deputy chairman, Ali Akhmedov, said at the meeting.

"Over the 20 years of his rule, Ilham Aliyev accomplished all the wishes of
our people," he added.

A state-run polling group recently said 75 percent of the population approved
of Aliyev's handling of the Karabakh conflict, which saw the mass exodus of
ethnic Armenians living in the long-disputed mountainous territory.

Aliyev sent troops to Karabakh on September 19 and after just one day of
fighting the Armenian separatist forces that had controlled the disputed
region for three decades laid down arms and agreed to reintegrate with Baku.

Azerbaijan's victory marked the end of the territorial dispute, which saw
Azerbaijan and Armenia fight two wars -- in 2020 and the 1990s -- that have
claimed tens of thousands of lives from both sides.

The countries are now negotiating a comprehensive peace treaty, but the
Western-mediated talks have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.