Azerbaijan

We currently see little to suggest that Aliyev's political power will be challenged in a meaningful way between now and the presidential election in October 2013. However, we see increasing scope for the Azeri leader to seek to bolster his standing and begin building his legacy, which until now has been overshadowed by his father and former leader Heydar Aliyev, who ruled Azerbaijan in the Soviet era and again from 1993-2003. With little to suggest that Azerbaijan is moving towards greater democratic progress or attempting to alleviate fears of a renewed military conflict with Armenia, we believe that the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute can no longer be categorised as a 'frozen conflict' as has been the case for most of the post-ceasefire period.

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