Azerbaijan - 2016 Referendum
Once Aliyev was re-elected in October 2018, he will benefit from the September 26, 2016 referendum on extending the presidential term from five to seven years.
Azerbaijan held a referendum on September 26, 2016 on extending the presidential term from five to seven years, a step that a European democracy watchdog said would hand unprecedented power to President Ilham Aliyev. Aliyev, 54, succeeded his father as president in 2003 and can seek re-election indefinitely after term limits were scrapped in another referendum seven years ago.
On 26 September 2016, the government conducted a referendum on 29 proposed constitutional amendments, with voters having the option to vote on each proposed amendment separately. Amendments included provisions extending the presidential term from five to seven years, permitting the president to call early elections if twice in one-year legislators pass no-confidence measures in the government or reject presidential nominees to key government posts. The amendments also authorized the president to appoint one or more vice presidents, designating the senior vice president as first in the line of presidential succession in place of the prime minister, who was approved by parliament.
After polls closed, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) announced that all 29 amendments were approved by 69.8 percent of registered voters. While observers from the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly reported the referendum was well executed, independent election observers who were unaccredited identified numerous instances of ballot stuffing, carousel voting, and other irregularities, many of which were captured on video. They also observed significantly lower turnout than was officially reported by the CEC.
President Ilham Aliyev appointed his wife as first vice president, putting her first in line to take over if the president dies or was incapacitated. Aliyev's order naming Mehriban Aliyeva to the newly created No. 2 post was published on the presidential website on 21 February 2017. Aliyeva, 52, was a deputy chairwoman of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party. She was also the head of the Heidar Aliyev Foundation -- a large nongovernmental organization named after her husband's father, who ruled newly independent Azerbaijan with an iron fist from 1993 until 2003. The positions of first vice president and two lower-tier vice presidents were among the constitutional amendments approved in a referendum in tightly controlled Azerbaijan in September 2016.
Mehriban Aliyeva, besides being the wife of the President, is a Member of Parliament and head of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, a non-transparent organization that bills itself as a vehicle for charitable works. Other members of the Pashayev family hold powerful positions in government and academia, and are associated with powerful business groups outside the energy sector. The Pashayevs are known to operate extensively in Baku's rapidly expanding construction/real estate market, and are well invested in the financial and telecommunications sectors.
First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva (born Mehriban Pashayeva) is no doubt the most famous member of this clan, playing multiple roles and holding multiple titles. Aside from being the President's wife, she is President of the Heydar Aliyev Fund, which proclaims to be a humanitarian organization constructing schools, hospitals, and youth centers, among other projects. These projects provide a constant array of goodwill photo opportunities and advertisements for the First Lady, as she cuts ribbons on new schools and cultural centers. The Fund has its critics, however, who claim that it often fails to provide continued financing for the operation of these projects. Much funding seems to be geared towards efforts to explain Azerbaijan's side of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, for example in the form of books, brochures and other materials describing what they call a "genocide by Armenia" in the town of Khojali. The receipts of donations to the Foundation are a type of "get out of jail free card" for local officials, meaning that if these officials can show that they donate regularly, higher level officials will allow them to operate businesses and other activities locally without interference.
Other notable Pashayevs include the First Lady's sister Nargiz Pashayeva, who heads the branch of Moscow State University located in Azerbaijan; the First Lady's father Arif Pashayev, who leads the National Aviation Academy; and the First Lady's uncle Hafiz Pashayev (brother of Arif Pashayev), who is a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Director of the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Hafiz Pashayev was also Azerbaijan's first Ambassador to the United States, serving in Washington DC for over 13 years. The Deputy Foreign Minister spent much time focusing on his Diplomatic Academy, which is constructing an elaborate new compound (modeled after NFATC Arlington) in central Baku. As a whole, the family, which generally speaks Russian better than Azeri, is considered the single most powerful family in Azerbaijan.
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