Agence France Presse — English
June 20, 2005 Monday 4:22 PM GMT
Ruling party headed for win in controversial Nagorno-Karabakh polls
STEPANAKERT, Azerbaijan June 20
Early results Monday from parliamentary polls in the self-proclaimed
republic of Nagorno Karabakh showed the ruling party on course for
victory in a vote Azerbaijan has slammed as illegitimate.
Election officials in the tiny unrecognized enclave said the ruling
party and its presumed ally had garnered 22 seats in the 33-seat
parliament, according to preliminary results.
An opposition bloc led by the national-socialist Dashnaktsutyun party
took only three places and immediately contested Sunday’s vote.
The eight other seats were won by independent candidates, the early
results showed.
“We don’t consider that the elections were fair, free and
transparent,” said Gegam Bagdasaryan, a representative of the
opposition bloc.
It accused regional authorities of abusing their “administrative
resources” in the run-up to and during the poll in this mostly ethnic
Armenian enclave, which has been bitterly contested since it broke
from Baku upon the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
But when asked if it would stage street protests to contest the
outcome, Armen Sarkisyan, another member of the opposition coalition,
said only the bloc’s primary goal was to “ensure stability in the
country.”
Pending final results, election officials said the rulling Artsakh
Democratic Party had taken 12 seats while the recently formed Free
Fatherland party, seen as loyal to Nagorno Karabakh’s leader Arkady
Gukasyan, won 10.
No foreign governments have sent observer missions, reflecting the
territory’s unresolved status.
But the enclave’s authorities have hoped the election would shore up
demands for independence. On the eve of the poll, Gukasyan said a
fair vote would help secure international recognition of the
republic.
Officials on Monday refused to comment before a final vote count,
expected in a few days time.
Azerbaijan has made it clear it considers any vote in the region
illegal until hundreds of thousands of Azeris banished from Karabakh
and seven surrounding regions were allowed to return.
The enclave is widely seen as propped up by Armenia, which fought
Baku in a war for control over Nagorno Karabakh between 1993 and 1994
that claimed some 25,000 lives and forced another million residents
— mostly Azeris — from their homes.
“Armenia is eager to legalize the occupation,” Azerbaijan’s election
commission charged in a written statement on Saturday.
“Elections and referendums on the occupied territories must be
conducted only after the territory’s restoration to Azerbaijan,” it
said.
Despite the tensions, Azerbaijan signalled its willingness to carry
on negotiating on Monday.
Azeri Foreign Minister Araz Azimov announced that the next in a
series of talks between Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian
counterpart Robert Kacharian would take place on August 26 in Russia.
“The discussion is fairly deep and the time has come to document some
of the agreements achieved,” Azimov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
Monitors from non-governmental organizations meanwhile reported no
major violations in Sunday’s voting, and the US-based Public
International Law and Policy Group lauded the poll.
“This was a transparent election,” said Paul Williams, an observer
for the group, which admitted it supported Karabakh’s aspirations to
self-determination.
Some 78 percent of the 90,000 eligible voters turned out for Sunday’s
poll in the enclave, where a tense ceasefire has held more than a
decade after the bloody conflict.
Nagorno Karabakh Republic has a population of 145,000 and comprises
14 percent of Azerbaijan’s overall territory.
The parliament is elected for a five-year term.