Agence France Presse
June 20 2005

Opposition slams poll in contested Nagorno Karabakh

STEPANAKERT, June 20 (AFP) – Opposition parties in the
self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh slammed parliamentary
elections there as unfair Monday, but said they had no plans to mount
street protests.

“We don’t consider that the elections were fair, free and
transparent,” Gegam Bagdasaryan, a representative of the opposition
bloc led by the national-socialist Dashnaktutsyun, told a press
conference called in response to Sunday’s vote.

“We’re saying that the authorities abused their administrative
resources before the campaign, during the campaign, and during the
elections,” Bagdasaryan said.

Asked if the bloc planned to launch street protests to contest the
results, another member of the opposition bloc, Armen Sarkisyan said
its primary goal was to “safeguard stability in the country.”

Early results showed that the opposition bloc had taken only three
out of the total 33 seats in parliament, confounding expectations
that the bloc would do well.

Karabakh’s leader, Arkady Gukasyan, was on course for victory, with
his Artsakh Democratic Party getting 12 seats. The Free Fatherland
party, generally considered loyal to Gukasyan, came in second place
with 10 seats.

It was unclear what proportion of votes had been counted. Fuller
results were expected later in the day.

The Karabakh enclave has been bitterly contested ever since it broke
from Azerbaijan upon the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war for control of the territory
between 1993 and 1994 that left an estimated 25,000 people dead and
drove around a million people, mostly Azeris, from their homes.

Today Nagorno Karabakh is widely seen as propped up by Armenia and
maintains a tense ceasefire with Azerbaijan.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress