Land of Dire: Why Azerbaijan has flamed out at Eurovision

Just days out from Eurovision 2026, attention is turning as to who will qualify for the Grand Final on 16 May.

The country tipped least likely to make the Grand Final is Azerbaijan, with Jiva's Just Go given around a 12% chance of qualifying at time of writing.

Azerbaijan's current Eurovision fortunes is in stark contrast to its early years of Eurovision participation.

Making its debut in 2008 with Elnur and Samir's Day After Day, Azerbaijan finished in the top eight in its first six participations. Its win in 2011 by Ell and Nikki with Running Scared was one of the quickest for a new nation in Eurovision history.

But since 2014, the country has only reached the top 10 once, and is currently on a three year non-qualification streak - the worst in its history.

So why has the so-called "Land of Fire" flamed out at Eurovision? To paraphrase their 2023 entrants TuralTuranX, we will tell you more.

Reduction in government interest and investment

In the early years of Azerbaijan's Eurovision participation, the contest was of upmost importance to the Caucus country, and winning was seen as a national priority.

The Azerbaijani government was desperate to win and therefore host Eurovision to raise its international standing. It therefore also tried to host another important events such as the 2020 Olympics and 2015 European Games - the latter of which it successfully bid for.

This meant the Azerbaijani government splashed lots of money into its Eurovision entries. In 2010 they hired Beyonce's choreographer for $1 million USD to choreograph Safura's Eurovision routine of Drip Drop in Oslo.

When Azerbaijan hosted the event in 2012, a whole new stadium was built to host the event - namely Baku Crystal Hall. 160 million Euros was spent on the 2012 contest, which is an all-time record which stands even today.

This lavish Eurovision spending allegedly also extended to vote rigging, with several mainstream media outlets reporting that Azerbaijani officials in 2013 were caught trying to buy both jury and tele-votes in several European countries.

Despite claiming that this attempted vote rigging did not succeed, the EBU announced in early 2014 that any country caught trying to rig the Contest would be banned for three years. It is curious timing that Azerbaijan's Eurovision results nosedived sharply from 2014 onwards.

What is evident though is that since winning and hosting Eurovision, the Eurovision Song Contest is not at the forefront of the Azerbaijani government's mind. Less money and resources are going into producing their Eurovision entry, resulting in a drop in quality of song choice and performance.

Reduction in foreign songwriters

Azerbaijan's Eurovision misfortunes have also coincided in a reduction of foreign songwriters in their Eurovision entries.

Swedish songwriters in particular are well-known for producing great pop songs, not just at Eurovision but globally. Azerbaijan has placed in the top five, five times - all of them had songwriters with a Swedish connection. In 2009 singer-songwriter Arash, a Swede, even represented the Caucasian country at Eurovision.

Between 2009 and 2022, foreign songwriters were involved in all of Azerbaijan's Eurovision entries, and the country only failed to qualify once in 2018 when Aisel's X My Heart came 11th in its semi-final.

Since then, Azerbaijan's Eurovision entries have all been penned completely by domestic writers. The entries have all finished either last or second last in their semi-finals.

Foreign songwriters are not necessarily of better quality than Azerbaijani composers. However, because they are from other countries, they are more likely to be in tune with what the rest of Europe is into musically, which may explain why Azerbaijan did better when foreign songwriters were involved in their entries. After all, one of the most famous Eurovision sayings is that you cannot vote for your own country.

Less rigorous artist selection

Between 2008 and 2014, Azerbaijan's Eurovision representative was selected in televised national finals, that were sometimes many months in length. Since 2015, all of the country's Eurovision artists and songs have been chosen internally.

With the exception of 2014, another reason why Azerbaijan may have done so well at Eurovision in its early era, is because its representative had to go through rigorous televised selections. The Azerbaijani judges would easily be able to see who could perform the best on the daunting, international stage.

Internally selected artists may also have been chosen, not based on their ability to perform, but on their connections.

There were allegations that Azerbaijan's representatives from 2023 to 2025 - its recent, non-qualification years - were chosen because of their connection to Ell. The 2011 Eurovision winner's announcement that he was not involved in this year's Azerbaijani Eurovision selection, seems to add weight to this theory.

No juries in the semi-finals

Azerbaijan often performs significantly better with the juries than the public televote, particularly in the semi-finals.

In fact had juries not existed in semi-finals in 2014 and 2015, Dilara Kazimova's Start a Fire and Elnur's Hour of Wolf would have both failed to qualify.

The best example of the jury's love for Azerbaijan is in 2022 when Nadir Rustamli's Fade to Black qualified, despite receiving no points from the tele-voters.

It is a curious coincidence that in 2023 to 2025 when there were no juries in semi-finals, Azerbaijan failed to qualify all three times.

Indeed the removal of juries from Eurovision semi-finals was due in part to irregularities found in the jury votes of six countries in second semi-final of the 2022 contest, where the countries all tried to vote for each other before their jury results were discarded by the EBU. Azerbaijan was one of the six countries involved.

Of course, in 2018 the juries failed to bail Azerbaijan out of their non-qualification, and the bookies predict the same will occur this year.

However, it is evident Azerbaijani entries tend to do better with the juries, especially in the semi-finals. The Azerbaijanis may have been clever enough to select songs that they knew would appeal to the juries and their criteria.

Less neighbourly votes

Several countries who have provided high marks to Azerbaijan in the past, no longer compete at Eurovision, namely Türkiye, Russia and Belarus.

Before its withdrawal from the 2013 contest, every time Azerbaijan and Türkiye competed in the same semi-final or in the Grand Final, they would always award each other top marks.

Russia was also a regular voter of Azerbaijan at Eurovision, and vice-versa. This voting relationship was so significant that when Azerbaijan failed to award Russia at points at Eurovision 2013, the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev demanded an investigation.

Of course, Azerbaijan cannot be reliant on just three countries to qualify at Eurovision. However, as has been seen - for example in the first semi-final of 2024 when Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia all exchanged top marks at Australia's qualification expense - having strong, consistent voting allies can certainly improve your chance of qualifying and doing well at Eurovision.

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Azerbaijan's fall from Eurovision grace can likely be explained with a combination of the aforementioned factors causing weaker song selections, poorer Eurovision performances that don't resonate with the wider continent, and ultimately dismal Eurovision results.

It is almost a forgone conclusion that this year Jiva will continue Azerbaijan's dire recent run.

However, if Azerbaijan re-invests money, resources and effort into Eurovision - in a legal way - there is every hope a Miracle (as Azerbaijan's 2016 representative Samra would say) will occur and the Caucasian country can turn its Eurovision fortunes around in the near future.

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