2003 Azerbaijani presidential election

Last updated September 17, 2024

Presidential elections were held in Azerbaijan on 15 October 2003. As expected, Ilham Aliyev, son of the outgoing president, Heydar Aliyev, was officially elected with an overwhelming majority in a vote international observers deemed not to be free or fair.^[1]^[2]

The election was characterized by ballot stuffing and manipulated voter lists. The final vote tabulation was kept from OSCE/ODIHR monitors, which meant that they could not judge the accuracy of the results.^[3] Police arrested members of electoral commissions who refused to sign paperwork on vote counts from their precincts.^[3] The opposition claimed that Gambar had won the election.^[3] The opposition protested against the election results, with the Aliyev regime arresting hundreds, including Gambar.^[4]

Conduct

Human Rights Watch stated that the "election campaign... from the beginning was heavily manipulated by the government to favor Prime Minister Ilham Aliyev, son of President Heydar Aliyev. The government ensured that election commissions would be stacked to favor Aliyev, and banned nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from monitoring the vote. As the election drew nearer, government officials openly sided with Ilham Aliyev, obstructed opposition rallies, and sought to limit participation in them. Police have beaten and arbitrarily detained hundreds of opposition activists, including a 73-year-old woman."^[1]

The Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe provided 188 election observers. The mission, requested by the United States government, formed part of a larger group of observers monitoring under the auspices of the OSCE. The IDEE observers observed more than 1,000 voting precincts and Constituency Election Centers where votes were tabulated, and collectively issued a "Votum Separatum," which expressed their outrage at election fraud, intimidation and political repression they witnessed during their observation mission and their disagreement with the OSCE's mild preliminary report calling the elections "generally well administered."^[2]

Results


Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Ilham Aliyev	New Azerbaijan Party	1,860,346	76.84
	Isa Gambar	Musavat	338,145	13.97
	Lala Shevket	National Unity	87,523	3.62
	Etibar Mammadov	Azerbaijan National Independence Party	70,638	2.92
	İlyas İsmayılov	Justice Party	24,098	1.00
	Sabir Rustamkhanli	Civic Solidarity Party	19,973	0.82
	Gudrat Gasanguliev	Azerbaijani Popular Front Party	12,071	0.50
	Hafiz Hajiyev	Modern Equality Party	8,267	0.34
Total			2,421,061	100.00

Source: Constitutional Court

Related Research Articles

The politics of Azerbaijan take place in an authoritarian system where elections are not free and fair, political opponents are repressed, civil rights are limited, human rights abuses are widespread, corruption is rampant, and power is concentrated in the hands of President Ilham Aliyev and his extended family.

Heydar Alirza oghlu Aliyev was an Azerbaijani politician who was a Soviet party boss in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic from 1969 to 1982, and the third president of Azerbaijan from October 1993 to October 2003.

The New Azerbaijan Party is the ruling political party in Azerbaijan, founded on 21 November 1992 under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev. After his election as President of Azerbaijan on 3 October 1993, and the party's victory at 1995 parliamentary elections, YAP became the ruling party, a position it has held since. President Ilham Aliyev has been chairman of YAP since its 3rd congress held on 26 March 2005.

The Azerbaijani Popular Front Party is a political party in Azerbaijan, founded in 1989 by Abulfaz Elchibey. Since Elchibey was ousted from power in the 1993 military coup, the party has been one of the main opposition parties to the Heydar Aliyev and Ilham Aliyev authoritarian regimes.

On the federal level, Russia elects a president as head of state and a parliament, one of the two chambers of the Federal Assembly. The president is elected for, at most, two consecutive six-year terms by the people. The Federal Assembly has two chambers. The State Duma has 450 members, elected for five-year terms. The Federation Council is not directly elected; each of the 89 federal subjects of Russia sends 2 delegates to the Federal Council, for a total of 208 (178 + 30, members.

After its independence from the Soviet Union, elections in Azerbaijan have frequently been affected by electoral fraud and other unfair election practices, such as holding opposition politicians as political prisoners. Since 1993, Heydar Aliyev and his son Ilham Aliyev have been continuously in power.

The Modern Equality Party is a political party in Azerbaijan.

The National Assembly, also transliterated as Milli Mejlis, is the legislative branch of government in Azerbaijan. The unicameral National Assembly has 125 deputies: previously 100 members were elected for five-year terms in single-seat constituencies and 25 were members elected by proportional representation; as of the latest election, however, all 125 deputies are returned from single-member constituencies.

Mehriban Arif gizi Aliyeva is an Azerbaijani politician and physician who is the vice president and First Lady of Azerbaijan.

International organizations have frequently alleged that Azerbaijan has violated human rights standards established in international law.

Isa Yunis oghlu Gambar, also known as Isa Gambar, is an Azerbaijani politician and leader of the Equality Party (Müsavat), one of the opposition blocs in Azerbaijan. He was elected a member of parliament in 1990 and was elected parliamentary speaker in 1992.

Presidential elections were held in Azerbaijan on 15 October 2008. Ilham Aliyev of the New Azerbaijan Party was re-elected with 89% of the vote. The election was not free and fair.

Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev is an Azerbaijani politician who is the fourth and current president of Azerbaijan. The son and second child of former Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev, Aliyev became the country's president on 31 October 2003, after a two-month term as prime minister of Azerbaijan, through a presidential election defined by irregularities shortly before his father's death. He was reelected for a second term in 2008 and was allowed to run in elections indefinitely in 2013, 2018 and 2024 due to the 2009 constitutional referendum, which removed term limits for presidents. Throughout his electoral campaign, Aliyev was a member of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, which he has headed since 2005.

Parliamentary elections were held in Azerbaijan on 7 November 2010.

Presidential elections were held in Azerbaijan on 9 October 2013. The result was a victory for incumbent President Ilham Aliyev, who received a reported 85% of the vote, whilst leading opposition candidate Jamil Hasanli finished second with a reported 6% of the vote.

Presidential elections were held in Azerbaijan on 11 April 2018. The elections were the first since the 2016 constitutional referendum, which extended the presidential term from five to seven years. Incumbent President Ilham Aliyev was re-elected president for a seven-year term.

Caviar diplomacy is a lobbying strategy of Azerbaijan, consisting of costly invitations to foreign politicians and employees of international organizations to Azerbaijan at the expense of the host country. Caviar diplomacy also includes expensive gifts presented as "a tribute to the Eastern tradition."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Statue of Heydar Aliyev, Mexico City</span> Statue formerly displayed in Mexico City

The statue of Heydar Aliyev is a bronze sculpture of the third president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, previously installed along Paseo de la Reforma, in Chapultepec, Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City.

Azerbaijan has been a member of the Council of Europe, an international organization that focuses on strengthening democracy and human rights, since 2001. As a member, it has attracted attention for holding political prisoners, low implementation of verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and bribing Council of Europe parliamentarians to suppress negative information about its human rights record. In 2017, the Committee of Ministers launched the first ever infringement proceeding against Azerbaijan after it refused to release opposition politician Ilgar Mammadov after a 2014 ECtHR verdict that his imprisonment was unlawful. There has also been criticism of Azerbaijan's continued membership by those who believe its lack of human rights protection undermines the credibility of the Council of Europe.

Presidential elections were held in Azerbaijan on 7 February 2024. Incumbent president Ilham Aliyev, who has held office since 2003, won a fifth consecutive term with over 92% of the vote, defeating his closest runner-up Zahid Oruj, who obtained just 2% of the vote.

References

1 2 "Azerbaijan: Presidential Elections 2003 – Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper" (PDF). Human Rights Watch . 2003-10-13. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
1 2 "The Azerbaijan 'Elections' – October 15, 2003". Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe . 2020-10-21. Archived from the original on 2020-09-04. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
1 2 3 Altstadt, Audrey L. (2017). Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Columbia University Press. p. 77. doi:10.7312/alts70456. ISBN 978-0-231-70456-4.
↑ Hale, Henry E. (2014). Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. p. 294. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139683524. ISBN 978-1-107-07351-7.

External links

OSCE report

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[HRW_AZ_pres_elec2003_full_pdf-1] 1 2 "Azerbaijan: Presidential Elections 2003 – Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper" (PDF). Human Rights Watch . 2003-10-13. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2020-10-21.

[IDEE_AZ_preselec2003-2] 1 2 "The Azerbaijan 'Elections' – October 15, 2003". Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe . 2020-10-21. Archived from the original on 2020-09-04. Retrieved 2020-10-21.

[:0-3] 1 2 3 Altstadt, Audrey L. (2017). Frustrated Democracy in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Columbia University Press. p. 77. doi:10.7312/alts70456. ISBN 978-0-231-70456-4.

[4] Hale, Henry E. (2014). Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. p. 294. doi:10.1017/cbo9781139683524. ISBN 978-1-107-07351-7.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

v t e Elections and referendums in Azerbaijan
Presidential elections	1991 1992 1993 1998 2003 2008 2013 2018 2024 2031
Parliamentary elections	1938 1947 1951 1955 1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995–96 2000–01 2005 2010 2015 2020 2024
Supreme Assembly of Nakhchivan	1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2024
Municipal elections	2009 2011 2014 2019
Referendums	1991 1993 1995 2002 2009 2016
See also: Elections and referendums in the Soviet Union