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Sunday, 13 May 2007

Herald Tribune

Armenian prime minister's party takes most votes in parliamentary election; observers note improvements
The party of Armenia's prime minister garnered the most votes in parliamentary elections, officials said Sunday, as foreign observers praised the vote and opposition parties accused authorities of fraud.
Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian's Republican Party was leading in the list of five parties topping the 5 percent minimum for seats in the 131-seat National Assembly, the Central Elections Commission said.
Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, meanwhile, commended the vote, saying it was, on the whole, better than the previous one four years ago.
"The election campaign was dynamic with extensive media coverage. Election day was calm, with no major incidents reported, but a few cases of fraud schemes were observed," the OSCE's election monitoring team said in a report. "Some procedural problems arose during the count and tabulation of votes as well as isolated cases of deliberate falsifications."
The organization also said there were some problems and inconsistencies in election regulations, and officials were slow to correct irregularities.
Central Elections Commission figures said the Republican Party, with 32.8 percent of the vote, was trailed by Prosperous Armenia, with 14.7 percent, and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, with 12.7 percent. Two other parties, Country of Law and Legacy, got less than 10 percent each, but enough to obtain seats in parliament.
Of the 131 seats, 90 are chosen according to proportions that parties get nationwide and 41 in single-mandate contests.
Roughly 1.37 million people, or about 60 percent of registered voters, cast ballots in Saturday's election, officials said.
"I voted for the authorities because I can now see the possibility of a better life which they will grant me," said Sarkis Ambartsumian, a 44-year-old scientist.
The Country of Law party, meanwhile, said it had noted "mass election violations," including bribery and improper balloting and vote-tallying. The party's representative to the election commission refused to sign the final protocol and promised to file suit against election officials to keep final results from being published in the official register.
Election officials refused to comment on the allegations.
More than 1,000 opposition party members and activists later rallied in a Yerevan square, vowing to press their fraud claims.
"They stole our votes again," said Narine Saakian, a 52-year-old homemaker. "The authorities are becoming more and more cynical with every passing year in their efforts to enrich themselves at the expense of simple people. I go to these radical rallies out of desperation."
Most political observers said Republican Party would likely join with Prosperous Armenia and Armenian Revolutionary Federation to form a ruling coalition and return Sarkisian to the post of prime minister.
Prosperous Armenia is a comparatively new player on the political scene, having been formed in 2004, and its origins are unclear. Some observers suggest it was formed at the initiative of President Robert Kocharian as a way to have a counterbalance to the Republican Party.
All the main parties call for addressing economic and social problems, including finding ways to increase the population of about 2.9 million. The population has dropped sharply in the post-Soviet period as the birth rate declined and an estimated 900,000 people emigrated, largely because of economic problems.
The tiny South Caucasus nation has few natural resources and its economic development is restricted by the closing of its borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey