Azerbaijan: The son of Azerbaijan's bed-ridden leader Mr Haidar Aliyev predicted overwhelming victory in presidential elections yesterday, saying the oil-rich nation's desire for stability would usher in the former Soviet Union's first political dynasty.
Mr Ilham Aliyev disregarded opposition claims of ballot rigging, even when one activist set himself on fire at a polling station to protest against a poll that rights groups and oil companies are monitoring with equal interest.
Western democracy watchdogs have already cited intimidation of Aliyev opponents and one-sided media coverage as features of the election, which some of the world's biggest energy firms hope passes off smoothly to safeguard their billion-dollar investments in the huge oil and gas reserves beneath the Caspian Sea, off the Azeri coast.
Aliyev jnr, who has tried to shake off a playboy reputation at odds with his father's image as a patriarch of the nation, voted at the school he attended as a child.
"I voted for a happy future for Azerbaijan," Mr Aliyev (41) told reporters.
"Azerbaijan needs peace, stability, economic development and integration with the international community. Azerbaijan must not return to the days of war, civil war, of chaos, anarchy." Mr Aliyev snr (80), a former KGB and Communist Party chief in Azerbaijan and a member of Nikita Krushchev's Soviet politburo, became president in 1993.
He has overseen a decade of relative prosperity, driven by the Caspian oil boom, and is seen as a guarantor of stability after negotiating a ceasefire with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Some 35,000 people died and a million were made homeless in fighting over the region - a mainly Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan - before Mr Aliyev snr sealed a truce. The issue is still a touchstone for Azeri nationalism however, and observers fear continuing tension could erupt into violence if Azerbaijan endures a messy transfer of power.
Critics say Mr Aliyev snr also presided over rampant corruption, before going into a US hospital with heart and kidney problems in August and making his son prime minister.
The main challenger to an Aliyev dynasty, Mr Isa Gambar, suggested that his supporters would take to the streets if they thought the election was rigged.
"I can't ask the people to stand by as their votes are stolen," he said. "If everything is honest, I will be president." Russia's NTV television showed crowds of unhappy people at polling stations, complaining that the names of long-dead relatives or neighbours were on electoral rolls, whereas those of live potential voters were missing.