Moscow/Baku, Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev won almost 90 per cent of the vote to secure another five-year term in oil-rich Caspian state in an election boycotted by the only real opposition, the country's central election committee said.

Aliyev, 46, son of the post-Soviet state's former strongarm ruler, grabbed 89.04 per cent of the ballots, Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted the commission as saying late Wednesday after about 70 per cent of the vote had been counted.

Authorities said there had been a high turnout of 75.65 per cent despite reports by European election monitors of widespread apathy among the country's 4.8 million voters.

A thousand international observers were watching the vote Wednesday, including nearly 400 from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is to publish its assessment Thursday.

In a first reaction after the polls closed, the observers said there had been no initial reports about grave problems. The country's main opposition parties decried the elections as a farce and criticized systematic discrimination.

The six contestants joining Aliyev on Wednesday's ballot were seen as mere place cards after the only opposition candidates who could have provided a ghost of a challenge boycotted the vote.

The only intrigue as the Central Asian nation voted Wednesday was how Aliyev would keep up his balancing act between Moscow and Washington as both increase their jostling over Azerbaijan's energy resources after Russia's war with the US ally Georgia in August.

Azerbaijan is key to Washington's policy of securing Caspian Sea oil and gas through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, bypassing Russia.

Azerbaijan's oil riches have yielded one of the world's fastest- growing economies with Aliyev reaping praise for infrastructure projects amid an astounding growth rate of more than 34 per cent in 2006, the latest year from which statistics are available. (dpa)