KOCHARIAN LOYALIST WINS KEY ELECTION IN YEREVAN
By Shakeh Avoyan

Radio Free Europe, Czech Rep.
Sept 27 2005

A businessman close to President Robert Kocharian was declared on
Monday the winner of Sunday’s local election in Yerevan’s central
administrative district, but his opposition challenger refused to
conceder defeat, alleging serious fraud.

Preliminary official results of the vote showed Gagik Beglarian,
the incumbent prefect of the Kentron district, winning 86 percent of
the vote. Ruzan Khachatrian, the opposition candidate representing
the Artarutyun (Justice), alliance had only 12 percent, according to
the local election commission.

`The election in Kentron proceeded peacefully and there were no
serious incidents,’ its chairman, Yeghishe Terterian, told RFE/RL.

The election was monitored by representatives of the Council of Europe.

They said they visited 50 polling stations and witnessed no serious
irregularities. Still, their preliminary statement stopped short of
calling the vote free and fair.

Khachatrian, for her part, accused the authorities of rigging the
ballot by inflating voter lists and allowing Beglarian supporters to
vote more than once. `My proxies and commission members insist that
there were people who went to polling stations and voted for four or
even five times,’ she told RFE/RL. `They couldn’t do anything because
they were not allowed to check passports and write down their numbers.’

The opposition candidate earlier accused Beglarian of attempting
to bribe her proxies and the few election officials representing
Artarutyun. The prefect’s campaign chief denied the claims.

The vote in Kentron, Armenia’s biggest and wealthiest community,
was the most politicized of local elections that are being held
across the country. Artarutyun has not fielded any candidates
in other constituencies, highlighting the lack of opposition
interest in the polls. Its leaders avoided direct participation in
Khachatrian’s campaign and are now preparing for another showdown
with the government during the upcoming referendum on Kocharian’s
constitutional amendments.

Khachatrian claimed that the authorities tested in Kentron `new
mechanisms for electoral fraud which will be used during the
referendum.’ `It’s now harder to resort to ballot box stuffing,
but there are other pitfalls in this electoral code,’ she said,
adding that multiple voting will be the main vote rigging technique
at the referendum.

Sunday also saw an election in Yerevan’s second largest district,
Arabkir. Its acting prefect, Hovannes Shahinian, held off a challenge
from another pro-establishment candidate and won 70 percent of the
vote. Less than one third of Arabkir’s 87,960 eligible voters cast
their ballots. The voter turnout in Kentron was 43 percent, according
to official figures.