approved the new Regulation, which granted additional powers to Local Executive Authorities, strengthening their dominant position in Azerbaijan's local affairs Chapter 9 of the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic addresses major issues of local self-government, such as the legal status of municipalities, types of local self-government bodies, their basic powers and relationships to other official entities. The other nominal tier of governance is municipalities (Bələdiyə), and members of municipalities are elected by a general vote in Municipal elections every five years. Currently, there are 1,607 municipalities across the country. The Law on Municipal Elections and the Law on the Status of Municipalities were the first to be adopted in the field of local government (2 July 1999). The Law on Municipal Service regulates the activities of municipal employees, their rights, duties, labor conditions, and social benefits and outlines the structure of the executive apparatus and the organization of municipal service. The Law on the Status of Municipalities regulates the role and structure of municipal bodies and outlines state guarantees of legal and financial autonomy. The law pays special attention to the adoption and execution of municipal programs concerning social protection, social and economic development, and the local environment. The Security Council is the deliberative body under the president, and he organizes it according to the Constitution. It was established on 10 April 1997. The administrative department is not a part of the president's office but manages the financial, technical and pecuniary activities of both the president and his office. Azerbaijan's political system has been defined by some political scientists as authoritarian, due to the long-lasting influence of the Aliyev political family and the New Azerbaijan Party (Yeni Azərbaycan Partiyası, YAP) established by Heydar Aliyev. The country's third President, Heydar Aliyev (in office between 1993 and 2003; he was previously the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan between 1969 and 1982, and First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union between 1982 and 1987) was succeeded by his son, the fourth and current President Ilham Aliyev, in 2003. Although Azerbaijan has held numerous elections since regaining its independence and has many of the formal institutions of a democracy, it remains categorised as "not free" by Freedom House, who ranked it 9/100 on Global Freedom Score in 2022, calling it a "consolidated authoritarian regime". In recent years, large numbers of Azerbaijani journalists, bloggers, lawyers, and human rights activists have been rounded