President Ilham Aliyev is preparing for a fifth term after persecuting dissidents and achieving great support from the population for the seizure of the disputed region from the Armenians. According to exit polls, the Azerbaijani leader won the elections with 94% of the votes.

The two main opposition parties, Musavat and the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, have withdrawn from participating due to the systematic persecution of critics. In total, 6,537 polling stations have opened, 26 of them in Nagorno Karabakh, and 6.5 million citizens have been called to polls where there have been no independent international observers.