Ilham Aliyev

Ilham Heydar oghlu Aliyev (İlham Heydər oğlu Əliyev ; born 24 December 1961) is an Azerbaijani politician who is the fourth and current president of Azerbaijan.

In 1977, Ilham Aliyev entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-MSIIR) and in 1982, continued his education as a postgraduate.

In 1985 he received a PhD degree in history.

From 1985 to 1990 Aliyev lectured at MSIIR.

From 1991 to 1994, he led a group of private industrial-commercial enterprises.

Ilham Aliyev is the son of Heydar Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003.

His mother Zarifa Aliyeva was an Azerbaijani ophthalmologist.

He also has an older sister, Sevil Aliyeva.

In 1994–2003, he was vice-president, and later the first vice-president of SOCAR, the state-owned Azerbaijani oil and gas company.

In 1995, Aliyev was elected to the Parliament of Republic of Azerbaijan; later he became president of the National Olympic Committee (still incumbent).

Since 1997, Aliyev is the president of the National Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan.

In 1999, Ilham Aliyev was elected as the deputy chair of the ruling party New Azerbaijan Party and in 2001, he was elected to the post of first deputy chair at the Second Congress of the Party.

From 2001 to 2003, Aliyev was head of the Azerbaijani delegation to Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

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.

In August 2003, while his father Heydar Aliyev was still formally president of Azerbaijan but was ill and absent from public events, Ilham Aliyev was appointed as Prime Minister.

The official results of the 15 October 2003 elections gave victory to Ilham Aliyev, who earned 76.84% of the votes.

The election was defined by election fraud.

Human Rights Watch and the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe documented arrests of opposition candidates, police violence against journalists and participants in election rallies, and "widespread fraud and abuse" in the conduct of the election itself.

Throughout his electoral campaign, Aliyev was a member of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, which he has headed since 2005.

Azerbaijan being oil-rich is viewed to have significantly strengthened the stability of Aliyev's regime and enriched ruling elites in Azerbaijan, making it possible for the country to host lavish international events, as well as engage in extensive lobbying efforts.

Aliyev's family have enriched themselves through their ties to state-run businesses.

They own significant parts of several major Azerbaijani banks, construction firms and telecommunications firms, and partially owns the country's oil and gas industries.

Much of the wealth is hidden through an elaborate network of offshore companies.

At the third Congress of the New Azerbaijan Party held on 26 March 2005, President Aliyev and the first deputy of the Party was unanimously elected to the post of chairman of the Party.

He was reelected for a second term in 2008 and was allowed to run in elections indefinitely in 2013 and 2018 due to the 2009 constitutional referendum, which removed term limits for presidents.

The fourth and fifth congresses of the party held in 2008 and 2013 unanimously supported his nomination for the next presidential term.

Ilham Aliyev was re-elected in 2008 with 87% of the polls.

A total of seven candidates filed to run in the election who had to collect 40,000 voter signatures.

According to the report of the Election Observation Delegation from the European Parliament the elections took place with no reported unrest and few minor electoral violations.

The report also highlights numerous reforms to the Electoral Code in accordance with OSCE and Council of Europe requirements and standards, which include inking of voters, more transparency of voter lists, and the prohibition of government interference in the election process.

During the 2008 presidential elections, PACE observers included a large group of frankly pro-Azerbaijani MPs. The variant of the statement on elections, prepared by the head of the group of observers Andreas Herkel, containing critical remarks, faced the rejection of the pro-Azerbaijani group consisting of Michael Hancock, Eduard Lintner and Paul Ville.

Herkel was forced to declare his resignation if criticism did not go into the statement.

During the referendum, which lifted the limits on the number of presidential terms for Ilham Aliyev, four PACE deputies – Eduard Litner, Paul Ville, Khaki Keskin and Pedro Agramunt evaluated the referendum as the progress of democracy.

In a constitutional referendum in 2009, term limits for the presidency were abolished.

The opposition claimed this to be a violation of the Azerbaijani constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.

He was named Corruption's 'Person of the Year' by Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in 2012.

In 2017, it was revealed that Aliyev and his family were involved in the Azerbaijani laundromat, a complex money-laundering scheme to pay off prominent European politicians to deflect criticism of Aliyev and promote a positive image of his regime.

Many observers see Aliyev as a dictator.

He leads an authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan; elections are not free and fair, political power is concentrated in the hands of Aliyev and his extended family, corruption is rampant, and human rights violations are severe (including torture, arbitrary arrests, as well as harassment of journalists and non-governmental organizations).

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict continued during Aliyev's presidency and culminated into a full-scale war in 2020 in which Azerbaijan regained control over the Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that were lost during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, as well as a part of Nagorno-Karabakh region itself.