President Ilham Aliyev has ordered Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission to prepare for an early presidential election on Feb. 7, shortly ahead of Russia’s presidential election on March 17.
The order was published on the presidential website but did not explain why Aliyev had called an early vote. The next presidential election had been scheduled to be held in 2025.
Aliyev’s popularity in Azerbaijan has recently increased after the government took full control of the Karabakh region following a lightning rout of ethnic Armenian forces.
In November, he presided over a military parade through Khankendi, the capital of the Karabakh region, telling spectators that “we showed the whole world the strength, determination and indomitable spirit of the Azerbaijani people.”
Khankendi, which Armenians called Stepanakert, was the headquarters of the self-declared separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh. The region and sizable surrounding territory came under control of ethnic Armenians in 1994 at the end of a separatist war.
But Azerbaijan regained parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and most of the surrounding territory in 2020 after…
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