German Press Agency
May 13 2007
Armenia government party wins parliamentary elections
May 13, 2007, 16:30 GMT
Yerevan – The pro-Russian Republican Party of Armenia’s Prime
Minister Serzh Sarkisian won the most seats in parliamentary
elections, results showed Sunday.
The party took 39.2 per cent in Saturday’s poll, followed by the
allied Prosperous Armenia Party (14.7 per cent) after vote counting
was completed in Yerevan.
The pro-Western opposition have claimed vote rigging in many regions.
Western observers, however, described a relatively fair poll compared
to previous such exercises in the former Soviet republic.
For Sarkisian, Saturday’s election marked a test for presidential
elections in January 2008. The government head is the favoured
successor to President Robert Kocharian, who is prevented from
standing as a candidate under constitutional law.
As the third strongest political force, the Armenian Revolutionary
Party come in with 12.8 per cent of the vote. The opposition party of
former parliament chairman Arthur Baghdasarian achieved 6.9 per cent.
‘These elections were a clear improvement. That is good for Armenian
democracy,’ the leader of the election observer delegation Tone
Tingsgaard of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) said in Yerevan.
Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of Yerevan
ahead of polling Saturday to protest electoral irregularities.
Aram Karapetian, the chairman of the New Time opposition party
accused the government of using its political machinery for one-sided
propaganda in favour of government parties.
President Kocharian threated to use force to prevent mass protests
and a change of power as was the case in Georgia and the Ukraine.
Predominantly Christian Armenia has suffered for years under a
blockade by neighbouring Turkey and Azerbaijan and relies on support
from Russia.