President Aliyev has been accused of grooming his son as a successor

Parliament in the oil-rich ex-Soviet republic of Azerbaijan has elected the son of ailing President Heydar Aliyev, Ilham, as prime minister.

The move appears designed to cement the first dynastic succession in the former Soviet Union, as the 80-year-old president puts his son in line to take over if he becomes incapacitated.

Heydar Aliyev, a former KGB officer and Politburo member who has run Azerbaijan for much of the past 35 years, has been in hospital in Turkey for much of the past month with heart problems.

The opposition rejected parliament's overwhelming vote to approve Ilham as prime minister on Monday.

"We believe this is an attempt to put into effect a neo-monarchist scenario in Azerbaijan, and we are confident that this... will not succeed," Isa Gambar of the opposition Musavat party told a Russian television station.

The opposition called on Mr Aliyev to resign if he could not prove he was well enough to govern.

Candidates

Heydar Aliyev's move indicates worries about his own mortality, according to Andreas Gross, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's rapporteur for Azerbaijan.

We're about to crack open the champagne in the office Westerner working in Baku

"I always asked myself why he did not [make his son prime minister] earlier. This means he could imagine dying without time to settle his affairs," Mr Gross told BBC News Online.

Ilham Aliyev and his father are both registered as candidates in the presidential elections which are due to be held in October.

Mr Gross said going into elections as prime minister would "upgrade him a little bit".

But he pointed out that some leading opposition candidates had been disqualified, which he said would not help the younger Mr Aliyev's legitimacy if he was elected.

Following Monday's parliament vote, Ilham told Russian television he would "telephone my father today".

"He is feeling better and this decision will make him very happy," he added.

Under Azeri law, the prime minister would assume power in the event of the president becoming too ill to govern until elections could be held.

Ilham Aliyev says his father will be happy at the news

Heydar Aliyev pushed the new succession law through in a controversial referendum last summer.

Since becoming president of independent Azerbaijan in 1993, Mr Aliyev has consolidated his power still further and attracted foreign investment in country's promising oil and gas sector.

At least one Western executive welcomed the sign that Mr Aliyev's son would succeed him.

"We're about to crack open the champagne in the office," an unnamed Westerner working in Baku told the French news agency AFP.

Groomed

Ilham Aliyev, 41, has been groomed for succession, holding senior posts in the Azerbaijan state oil company and ruling New Azerbaijan political party.

Opposition parties and human rights groups say his father has a dismal human-rights record, with most of his opponents either in jail or living outside the country.

They say he has allowed corruption to flourish, leaving millions of people in poverty despite the country's mineral wealth.

But his defenders credit him with bringing stability to the country after the turmoil of the Soviet collapse.

He has not been seen in public since his return to a Turkish hospital last month after a fall earlier this year.

Opposition newspapers have run articles saying the president may already have died, but officials insist he is doing well and looking forward to coming home.

Over the weekend, Azerbaijan's ambassador to Turkey, Mehmet Nevruzoglu, made the first official announcement that the president was receiving treatment for heart problems.