BAKU, December 12. /TASS/. Azerbaijan’s ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party has nominated incumbent Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to run in the snap presidential election set for February 7, 2024, the party’s deputy chairman, Tair Budagov, said.

"Incumbent President Ilham Aliyev will be our candidate in the upcoming snap election," he told reporters. Aliyev will be endorsed as the party’s presidential candidate at an emergency board meeting, which, according to Budagov, "will take place in the near future."

Under current law, Azerbaijan’s Central Election Commission must officially confirm a candidate’s status as such within five days from the date it received his or her filing paperwork. After that, the presidential hopeful and his authorized groups will begin gathering voter signatures, which are required for his formal registration as a presidential candidate. A candidate must gather at least 40,000 signatures to be registered. The election campaign will then kick off 23 days before the vote, which in this case falls on January 15.

Aliyev signed a decree on December 7, designating February 7, 2024 as the date for the country’s snap presidential election. The next scheduled election was supposed to take pace in October 2025. No reasons were provided as to why the vote was being rescheduled.

Under Azerbaijan’s current constitution, the president is elected for seven years and can serve for an unlimited number of terms. Azerbaijan held its last presidential vote in April 2018. Aliyev won the election, securing 86.22% of the vote.