Azerbaijan holds a parliamentary election expected to retain the presidential party’s dominance

Polls closed Sunday evening in Azerbaijan’s snap parliamentary election, the first since it regained full control of Karabakh, a former breakaway territory, in a lightning offensive last year. Previous elections since independence from the Soviet Union have not been regarded as fully free or fair, and the vote for the Milli Mejlis parliament is not expected to bring significant changes to the body dominated by President Ilham Aliyev’s New Azerbaijan party. Under the constitution, the election would have been held in November, but Aliyev decreed it to take place two months as it coincided with the capital, Baku, hosting the United Nations climate talks, known as COP29.