Keeping it in the family
This year, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev offered his wife a special anniversary present — he appointed her first vice-president.
Aliyev announced this week that Mehriban Aliyeva, 52, would step into a role created last fall by constitutional referendum. In that position, she will succeed her husband if he steps down. She will also likely oversee the country’s cabinet.
(The constitutional amendments approved in the referendum also stretched the presidential term from five to seven years, after a 2009 referendum abolished term-limits in the former Soviet republic. And they ditched the age requirement for president, paving the way for the Aliyevs’ 19-year-old son to run.)
Aliyeva graduated from medical school, but she has always had an interest in politics. She serves in the country’s parliament and chairs her husband’s political party, Yeni Azerbaijan.
She has run several big projects, including Azerbaijan’s Olympic bid and the Heydar Aliyev charity.
She is famous (or infamous) for her love of luxury, her meticulous appearance and her stylish dress.
In leaked American diplomatic cables, diplomats suggested that Aliyeva had problems showing a “full range of facial expression” because of “substantial cosmetic surgery.” They also wrote that she was poorly informed about political issues.
Opposition leaders say the Aliyevs run their country like a fiefdom, getting rich off Azerbaijan’s energy reserves. Now they’re trying to consolidate dynastic rule, critics say. “This appointment shows disrespect to the people,” Ali Kerimli, leader of one of Azerbaijan’s opposition parties, told Reuters. “It’s the first step to the establishment of an absolute monarchy in the country.”
Azerbaijan’s leadership has long been all in the family. Ilham Aliyev succeeded his father, Heydar Aliyev, who ruled Azerbaijan as a Communist Party boss and then as a post-Soviet president for almost 30 years. The son took over in 2003.