Azerbaijan, Baku, 22 August / Trend corr. E.Babayev / The opposition Azerbaijani National Unity Party (ANUP) will support candidature of the current President Ilham Aliyev, the chairman of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (NAP), in the upcoming presidential elections.
"Earlier, we decided to support Ilham Aliyev even in the presidential elections in 2003and do not see any necessity to review this decision," Yunus Oguz, the chairman of the ANUP, told Trend on 21 August.
The presidential elections will be held in Azerbaijan on 15 October. Azadlig bloc, uniting three opposition parties (the Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, the Liberal Party and the Citizens and Development Party), the Classical Popular Front Party of Azerbaijan, the Open Society, the Musavat, the Civil Solidarity, the Democratic, the Great Establishment, the Azadlig, the National Independence, the Social Democrat parties, as well as Eldar Namazov, the head of the Public Forum of 'For Azerbaijan', refused to participate in the elections with own candidates
According to Oguz, he does not see any necessity to nominate his candidature. "In 2003, when I withdrew from the presidential elections campaign, I stated that opposition should prepare for not the presidential elections of 2008, but the elections of 2013. Ilham Aliyev will win undoubtedly in these elections. We will participate in the propaganda campaign to support the President's candidature," he said. The statement that the elections will not be held on democratic conditions, does not have any grounds. "The Central Elections Commission (CEC) has confirmed 16 presidential contenders. Under the Constitution, any citizen can appeal to the highest position of the state. It is not necessary that all these candidates should belong to traditional opposition parties," Oguz said. Reasons of some opposition parties' refusal from the elections are known, he said. "It is weakness and cut in social base and the inability to meet the current requirements," Oguz said.
The ANUP was established in 1999. People, who left the Vahdat party, established the ANUP under Oguz's leadership.