On 5 March, Azerbaijan’s ruling New Azerbaijan party (NAP) held its 7th congress where it adopted a new organisational charter.

Mehriban Aliyeva, Azerbaijan's First Lady and First Vice-President, has been appointed as First Deputy Chair of the ruling party, Ali Ahmadov as Deputy Chair, Tahir Budagov Deputy Chair - Head of Central Apparatus with an order of Chair of the New Azerbaijan Party Ilham Aliyev. 

By further decisions the Political Council of 84 members was abolished, but at the same time, the Council of Veterans was created under the leadership of the former Vice-Speaker of Parliament Arif Rahimzadeh. The number of members of the party's Board has also been doubled to 40. The new composition of the Board did not include the former head of the presidential administration Ramiz Mehdiyev and the ex-deputy executive secretary Siyavush Novruzov.  

A new composition of the Control and Auditing Commission of 13 members has been formed. Also, the former vice speaker of parliament, and now head of the State Committee for Women, Family and Child Affairs, Bahar Muradova, became the head of the Women's Council of the party. 

In addition, a decision was also made to merge several de facto inactive small parties - People's Democratic Party, Yurddash, National Salvation, National Action, and the Democratic Party of Owners - with the NAP. 

The country’s President and party leader Ilham Aliyev spoke at the congress, focusing his speech on two main topics, namely Azerbaijan's economic development and Nagorno-Karabakh. “Three years passed since the 6th Congress of the New Azerbaijan Party, which were decisive for our country and region. Many important events happened in the country’s life during [those] three years and certainly, most important of them was restoration of our territorial integrity, obtaining a bright victory in the Patriotic War. Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity, expelled occupants from our eternal territories, and so restored historical justice,” he stated. 

“If we approach from a historical point of view, years of 2003-2020 were a preparation period. We had to prepare, and I did not hide it. I used to say that if this issue is not solved by peaceful means, we will solve it by war. I was subjected to many pressures because of this. Representatives of great countries accused me ‘that Ilham Aliyev does not want peace, he wants war. He threatens someone. War is impossible, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict does not have a military solution,’” he added.

Aliyev also stressed that with the victory in the Second Karabakh war the need arose to further strengthen the Azerbaijani military. “We were instructed to create a more modern army. Because now military experts, international military experts say that Azerbaijan has waged a war of the 21st century. We must probably plan so that, perhaps fifty years from now, we will be ready for the war of the 22nd century. Because power solves everything. Unfortunately, this is so. Where international law does not work, only force can be decisive,” he said. 

He also stated that Azerbaijan was ready for cooperation with Armenia. “Deputy Prime Ministers of Azerbaijan-Armenia-Russia have already met many times. What do they talk about? About cooperation. Are we against cooperation? No! Armenia deviates from cooperation now. Armenia tries to prevent the execution of the Zangazur corridor now. But it will not be able to be achieved. We will make them. We will achieve all our desires, just as we expelled them from our territories. But would cooperation with them be beneficial for us at those times? Of course, no. It has been said many times that many representatives of the citizen community come, meet. There were such meetings for a while. But we saw that the main essence was left aside here. As if there was no war,” he stated. 

On the economic level, Aliyev emphasised that successful energy policy and transport policy has not only led to the creation of energy and transport corridors, but also created new formats of cooperation in the region and in the wider Eurasian region. “Today, we do not depend on anyone on any criteria, on any parameter, we are in the forefront of the economic sphere - in terms of foreign debt, economic growth and per capita foreign exchange reserves,” he said. Aliyev also said that a new economic era was in sight for Azerbaijan which is “the era of transparency, the era of honesty, the last era of monopolies.” 

“I was informed yesterday that a very authoritative organisation has analysed more than 60 sovereign wealth funds of the world, and the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan is in fifth place in all parameters and all criteria. Look at the report of the Davos Economic Forum, we are ahead of developed countries in terms of economic development, in terms of infrastructure projects. Has anyone helped us? No. Our foreign debt is only 18-19 percent of GDP. Also, our foreign exchange reserves are 5-6 times more than our foreign debt. If we want, we can pay all our foreign debt tomorrow, in a day, in a month,” Aliyev added. 

It was noted by the Azerbaijani news agency Turan that the reasons for convening the extraordinary congress, as well as the very fact of its holding, were not advertised. The first reports about the preparations for the congress appeared 10 days ago. Since then, no one from the office of the ruling party, as well as its members, has confirmed the fact of the forum, as well as its agenda.