BAKU. – So as to strengthen her positions during the pre-election campaign, Azerbaijan’s First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva is trying to decouple the Nakhichevan clan. And currently unemployed Ali Naghiyev, who is founder of the current ruling New Azerbaijan Party (NAP) and Azerbaijan’s former Ambassador to Belarus, is preparing to establish his own party, Azadliq newspaper of Azerbaijan writes.     

“In reality, [however,] the plan to establish a party is the work of the Baku-Shirvan clan, and thus it wants to decouple and weaken the positions of another influential [clan], the [ruling] Nakhichevan clan” the paper writes.

“By being an alternative to the ruling NAP, Naghiyev’s party is expected to become the second influential political force in the country. But the problem is that it is less likely that the representatives of the ‘old guard’ would wish to enter the ranks of the party led by Naghiyev, since at the time many of them did not accept Ali Naghiyev among their ranks,” Azadliq concludes.