Heydar Aliyev

Heydar Aliyev, born in 1923, president of Azerbaijan from 1993 to 2003. Heydar Aliyev was born to a working-class family in Naxçivan, which is now an autonomous (self-governing) republic of Azerbaijan. He rose to power through the Azerbaijan internal security agencies. Beginning in 1941, when Azerbaijan was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Aliyev held posts in security agencies in Naxçivan, as well as in the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), the forerunner of the State Security Committee (KGB) in charge of the Soviet political police. From 1950 to 1967 Aliyev held increasingly responsible posts in the Azerbaijan security apparatus, becoming chairperson of the Azerbaijan KGB in 1967.

In 1969 Aliyev became the first secretary, or head, of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, making him the leader of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). In his early years as first secretary, he conducted purges of Azerbaijani nationalist leaders seeking independence. As a close associate of Leonid Brezhnev, general secretary of the Communist Party in the USSR from 1964 to 1982, Aliyev became one of the few non-Russian candidate members of the Politburo, the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in 1976. When Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party in 1985, he instituted an investigation into corruption in Azerbaijan, leading to Aliyev’s dismissal in 1987 from his post as first secretary and from the Politburo.

Azerbaijan became an independent nation in 1991. That year Aliyev left the Communist Party and was elected chairperson of the Naxçivan legislature. In June 1993 the national legislature, the Milli Majlis (National Assembly), elected Aliyev as its chairperson. Shortly thereafter, a breakaway military unit led by Surat Huseinov seized control of the government in Baku, forcing President Abulfaz Elchibey into exile. Support for Elchibey had eroded due to his conduct of Azerbaijan’s war with Armenia over the breakaway Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Milli Majlis then transferred presidential powers to Aliyev and scheduled a presidential election for October. Opposition parties boycotted the election, claiming it was unconstitutional, and Aliyev won 98.8 percent of the vote. He appointed Huseinov, the leader of the mutiny, as prime minister. However, Aliyev dismissed Huseinov in October 1994, accusing the prime minister of plotting a coup.

Azerbaijan’s first post-Soviet constitution, which voters approved in November 1995, granted wide-ranging powers to the president. Aliyev continued to strengthen his grip on power through the rest of the 1990s, primarily by ousting government and military officials who were unsupportive of his regime and by suspending some opposition parties. These tactics brought enough political stability to bolster Aliyev’s efforts to attract Western investment in Azerbaijan’s promising petroleum sector. Azerbaijan achieved some economic stability, but mostly to the benefit of a small business elite. Meanwhile, the dispute with Armenia over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh remained a thorn in Aliyev’s side, as a series of negotiations with Armenian president Robert Kocharian failed to achieve a final peace settlement.

Aliyev won a second term as president in 1998. International monitors claimed the election was marred by widespread ballot stuffing in Aliyev’s favor and a progovernment bias in the media. Citing poor health, Aliyev pulled out of the 2003 presidential race just weeks before the vote in October. His son, Ilham Aliyev, won the election.