On 8 October, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov resigned from his post. On the same day the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed an order to dismiss Mammadov from his post and submited the candidacy of the Assistant to the President for Economic Affairs, Ali Asadov, for the position of the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan which was unanimously confirmed by the Azerbaijani parliament afterwards.

“Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov appealed to President Ilham Aliyev in connection with the resignation,” said the Speaker of the Parliament Ogtay Asadov. The Azerbaijani newspaper Azerdaily speculated that Mammadov’s resugnation was a result of his inability to reorganise the government and increase its effectiveness and to foster economic growth in the country. These were regarded as a key priority on his appointment in 2018. “Economic and financial reforms stalled, and required constant personal intervention by the president. Without the president, things did not move. Moreover, N. Mammadov could not achieve an improvement in macroeconomic indicators, in particular, an increase in the growth rate of the gross domestic product, as the president repeatedly insisted,” stood in the article.

His successor, Asadov was the head of the Department of Economics at the Baku Institute of Social Management and Political Science and a graduate of the Moscow Plekhanov Institute. He was part of the first delegation of Azerbaijan to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and afterwards became Aliyev’s assistant in economic affairs.

Due to Azerbaijan’s political system being regarded as presidential, the role of the country’s Prime Minister is not of great significance and is regarded as the first minister in the cabinet of the president, with the President and Vice-President of Azerbaijan being the key executive figures. The President of the country is the main executive body which powers are not constrained by the parliament. In 2016, through a referendum, a constitutional amendment was introduced which gave the president the power to appoint or dismiss the First Vice-President and Vice-Presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The post of First Vice-President was taken by the First Lady of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva, who was the de facto head for the implementation of all significant major social and humanitarian projects in the government of Ilham Aliyev.