The New Azerbaijan Party (Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası, YAP) is the ruling political party in Azerbaijan. It was formed on 18 December 1992 by the former President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev, who led it until his retirement and death in 2003. It is now led by his son, Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father as the party leader and as President of Azerbaijan since 2003.
The party's stated ideologies are lawfulness, secularism, and Azerbaijani nationalism. It wants to build a "social-oriented" economy, and lists civil solidarity and social justice as the basis of its ideology. The founder of the party, Heydar Aliyev, was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until July 1991.
At the elections (5 November 2000 and 7 January 2001), the party won 62.3% of the popular vote and 75 out of 125 seats. Its candidate Ilham Aliyev was reported by the government to have won 80% of the popular vote in the 2003 presidential elections, which faced criticism of vote-rigging from groups such as Human Rights Watch. At the 2005 parliamentary elections, it won 62 out of 125 seats. At the 2010 parliamentary elections, it won 72 out of 125 seats. Presently, New Azerbaijan Party has 518 thousand members.
The main contention between the ruling New Azerbaijan Party and the opposition can actually be seen as a power struggle between the old Soviet elite, which still controls Azerbaijan, and the new intelligentsia that has long-opposed Soviet institutions.
Famous quotes containing the word party:
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—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)