What is Baku planning by organizing extraordinary elections?

Political analyst Hakob Badalyan writes in the Telegram channel: "In the last six years, there seem to be only extraordinary elections in Azerbaijan. Aliyev postponed the next presidential election to be held in October 2018 by six months and held it in April 2018. By the way, it is worth noting that in fact Aliyev equated the election of the president with the period of internal political resolution in Armenia, when Serzh Sargsyan was finishing his second presidential term and had to transition to the position of prime minister.

Another extraordinary election was held by Azerbaijan in February 2020, an extraordinary election of the parliament, which should have been held in November 2020, if it was the next one.

Of course, paying attention to that circumstance in retrospect, we can actually conclude that Azerbaijan moved the extraordinary parliamentary elections from November 2020 to February, because he planned the 44-day war.

In that case, the question will arise, what was Baku planning when it called for the next presidential election to be held in October 2018 and held it in April 2018? If Aliyev "released" November 2020 from the electoral process, why did he "release" October 2018 from the electoral process?

Did he plan a war in October 2018, but some circumstances got in the way? What happened in Armenia in April-May 2018 could have happened under those circumstances?

In this regard, I have expressed my opinion on several occasions, that according to me, yes, Aliyev may have considered a war scenario in the fall of 2018, but what happened in Armenia to some extent created a new situation and put it on hold. Then the fall of 2020 was "released" from the electoral process.

Another emergency was the election of the president. Aliyev held it in February 2024, while the next presidential election was scheduled for April 2025. According to the popular assessment, Aliyev held an extraordinary election instead of a regular one, because at that moment he considered himself "on a horse" and tried not to take too much time and while the pathos of victory was "hot", so to speak, to "beat it hot".

And now, Azerbaijan announces the extraordinary election of the parliament. The next one was supposed to be held in February 2025, but instead will take place in the next month or two. Baku explains this by the fact that in November 2024, when the term of the current parliament expires and the next election process should begin, the Climate Summit will be held in Azerbaijan and it should be replaced by a fully functioning new parliament.

We can only "guess" how the circumstances of the outgoing parliament will hinder the Climate Summit, and that too in an authoritarian-totalitarian country like Azerbaijan. And the fact is that Azerbaijan, by moving the extraordinary elections of the president and then the parliament to 2024, actually "frees" the first three-four months of 2025 from the electoral process."