Milli Majlis approves Ali Asadov as Azerbaijani Prime Minister

The Azerbaijani parliament has approved Assistant to the President for Economic Issues Ali Asadov for the post of Azerbaijan's Prime Minister at a plenary autumn session today. All 105 MPs took part in the voting.

Speaker of the Azerbaijani Parliament Ogtay Asadov said at the plenary meeting that Novruz Mammadov appealed to President Ilham Aliyev to be removed from his position of Prime Minister.

The decision to appoint Ali Asadov as the Prime Minister of the Republic is part of the reforms of human resources carried out by Ilham Aliyev.

Novruz Mamedov has served as the 8th Prime Minister of Azerbaijan since 21 April 2018.

In the 2018 inauguration speech Ilham Aliyev said: "In the coming years, additional steps will be taken to improve the business environment. Economic reforms will be deepened. It is necessary to ensure full transparency in the economic sphere and put an end to all negative phenomena." Implementation of the objectives then became the task of the new government led by Novruz Mammadov. 

However, not much has changed in the economic life of Azerbaijan since the appointment of Novruz Mammadov - the Prime Minister did not cope with the tasks set by the president, in particular, organizing economic reforms, increasing the growth rate of Azerbaijan’s GDP and increasing the efficiency of the government.

A change of prime minister is not a matter of loyalty. There is no doubt about Novruz Mammadov’s loyalty: for more than 16 years he has been on the president’s team, having joined it under Heydar Aliyev and continued his state work under Ilham Aliyev. All these years he devotedly served his homeland and was loyal to the president. Today, the head of government is required to show results, be adequate to current tasks and effective, he should not just rely on past achievements.

The president’s message to officials is that previous successes and achievements are no longer a criterion for evaluating work, now effectiveness and performance results are criteria.

In recent years Azerbaijan's Cabinet has noticeably grown younger: Tax Minister Mikayil Jabbarov, Energy Minister Parviz Shakhbazov, Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population Sahil Babayev, Minister of Agriculture Inam Karimov, Minister of Education Ceyhun Bayramov, Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies Ramin Guluzade. The new prime minister, Ali Asadov, is younger than his predecessor and represents a completely different generation of statesmen.

The new appointment allows us to expect that the economic reforms necessary for Azerbaijan will be implemented at the level that suits today's and tomorrow's needs of the republic.