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Azerbaijan Government and Politics
In the late 1980s, the advent of Mikhail S. Gorbachev's
policy of glasnost in Moscow encouraged vocal opposition
to the ruling Azerbaijani Communist Party (ACP). In 1989 the
central opposition role went to the Azerbaijani Popular Front
(APF), which was able to capture the presidency in the 1992
election. But failure to resolve the disastrous conflict in
Nagorno-Karabakh continued to destabilize Azerbaijani regimes
throughout the early 1990s. Growing masses of disaffected
refugees pressed vociferously for military victory and quickly
shifted their support from one leader to another when losses
occurred, negating efforts to establish solid political
institutions at home or to make concessions that might provide a
diplomatic solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In 1993 the
APF leadership was overthrown, and former communist official
Heydar Aliyev was installed as president.
Data as of March 1994
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