Azerbaijan Communist Party (1993)
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 Azerbaijan portal |
The Azerbaijan Communist Party (Azerbaycan Kommunist Partiyasi) is a political party in Azerbaijan. AKP was set up in 1993 by Ramiz Ahmadov and registered by the Justice Ministry in 1994. The Party is plagued by splits ever since its formal foundation, the most well-known is Firudin Hasanov's faction. The politician formed his own party, the Reformist Communist Party of Azerbaijan, which supports the government and for a brief period it was the only legally registered communist party in the country. Hasanov was a candidate in Azerbaijan's 1998 presidential election and he arrived fourth obtaining 29.224 votes (0.87%).
AKP's Chairman is Ramiz Ahmadov and his vice is Rauf Gurbanov. The party maintains close contacts with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation but it is not against the country's freedom and independence. In one occasion Ahmadov stated: we are Narimanovists, followers of the national, cultural and economic ideas of Nariman Narimanov.[1] Nariman Narimanov was a moderately nationalist and leftist Azeri leader of the 1920s, and is viewed in retrospect as a forerunner of "national communism."
AKP often criticizes US politics in the region. In 2004 after the US State Department told that US was not planning to impose sanctions on Nagorno Karabakh separatists, Ahmadov said that the Americans underhandedly supported the Armenian interests and that Washington was not interested in the settlement of the conflict. He also added that the great powers are making use of the Karabakh conflict for their own interests.
AKP was strongly against the Azeri partecipation into the Iraq war and it often expressed solidarity to Palestinian people, to Cuba and also to "socialist Moldova".
The party claims that it has 60.000 members.
AKP publishes Azerbaijan Hagigaty.
At the parliamentary election of 5 November 2000 and 7 January 2001, the party won 6.3 % of the popular vote and 2 out of 125 seats.
At the parliamentary elections of 6 November 2005 the party won 0.63% of the popular vote and none of 125 seats, but the chairman Ramiz Ahmadov was not running due to health problems.
