The Müsavat Party (Azerbaijani: Müsavat Firqəsi, from Arabic: مساواة musāwāt, lit. 'equality' or 'parity') is the oldest existing political party in Azerbaijan. Its history can be divided into three periods: Early Musavat, Musavat-in-exile and New Musavat.
The party was prohibited from contesting the 1995 and 2000 parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan by the Heydar Aliyev regime. At the time, the party was one of major opposition parties in the country.
Khyrdalan (Azerbaijani: Xırdalan) is a city, municipality, and the capital of the Absheron District of Azerbaijan. The city is home to the country's biggest brewery, Baltika-Baku, previously known as Khyrdalan. Khyrdalan gained city status on 29 November 2006 after its approval by the National Assembly of Azerbaijan. A monument to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was erected in 2007 in the city. Similarly, a statue of Heydar Aliyev was erected in Cairo in 2008. In the wake of the 2011 Egyptian protests, the Azerbaijani opposition, led by the Musavat Party, demanded the demolition of the statue, calling it a "worship of idols". On 8 June 2011, the statue was taken down following Mubarak's resignation.
The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Demokratik Cümhuriyyəti), also known as the Azerbaijan People's Republic (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Xalq Cümhuriyyəti; آذربایجان خلق جمهوریتی), was the first secular democratic republic in the Turkic and Muslim worlds. The ADR was founded by the Azerbaijani National Council in Tiflis on 28 May 1918 after the collapse of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and ceased to exist on 28 April 1920. Its established borders were with Russia to the north, the Democratic Republic of Georgia to the north-west, the Republic of Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. It had a population of around 3 million. Ganja was the temporary capital of the Republic as Baku was under Bolshevik control.
Under the ADR, a government system was developed in which a Parliament elected on the basis of universal, free, and proportionate representation was the supreme organ of state authority; the Council of Ministers was held responsible before it. Fatali Khan Khoyski became its first prime minister. Besides the Musavat majority, Ahrar, Ittihad, Muslim Social Democrats as well as representatives of Armenian (21 out of 120 seats), Russian, Polish, German, and Jewish minorities gained seats in the parliament. Many members supported Pan-Islamist and Pan-Turkist ideas.