Bloomberg
May 13 2007
Armenia’s Ruling Coalition Heads for Election Victory (Update2)
By Sebastian Alison and Troy Etulain
May 13 (Bloomberg) — Armenia’s ruling coalition headed for victory
in parliamentary elections deemed “largely” fair by international
monitors. The opposition said the poll was flawed.
The Republican Party of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan won about a
third of the votes counted by 3 p.m. local time, twice as many as its
nearest rival, the electoral commission said on its Web site. The
coalition’s share was more than 60 percent, with more than 98 percent
of ballots counted. The official result won’t be announced for a few
days.
The vote was “an improvement on previous elections and were
conducted largely in accordance with the standards for international
elections,” Tone Tingsgard, who coordinated the monitoring for the
Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe,
told a news conference in Yerevan today. The OSCE had 400 people
monitoring the voting.
All Armenian elections since 1995 had been declared flawed by
international observers. The landlocked state of 3.2 million people,
bordering Iran and Turkey and about the size of Maryland, is the
third-largest recipient of direct U.S. aid per person. It was warned
it may lose aid if this poll was also defective.
“I wouldn’t consider it a legitimate election,” Tigran Mkrtchian of
the opposition Country of Law Party said in Yerevan today. “We are
very disappointed.”
The coalition’s Prosperous Armenia party’s share of the votes counted
was about 15 percent, and its partner Armenian Revolutionary Front
about 13 percent, figures from the electoral commission showed.
Turnout was 59.4 percent, or about 1.3 million of an electorate of
about 2.3 million.
Election Laws
Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian had said before the vote that “we
can’t afford another election that doesn’t meet international
standards.” The OSCE’s Tingsgard said Armenian officials “did their
utmost” to adhere to election laws.
Leo Platvoet, head of the delegation from the 47-member Council of
Europe, said that while there were some “irregularities,”
“progress” was made.
Armenia’s government has an estimated budget of $1.6 billion this
year, with revenue of $1.3 billion, according to the CIA World
Factbook. U.S. aid has fallen to about $55 million a year, from $75
million previously, putting it behind Israel and Egypt. The country
got about $254 million in overseas development aid in 2004 and also
relies on remittances from expatriates.
The U.S. and Armenia signed a new agreement last year which may
generate an aid package worth $235 million, to reduce rural poverty.
Agriculture accounts for almost half of all jobs in the country and
only about a sixth of gross domestic product.
Predecessor Dies
The opposition staged several rallies before the vote and had
threatened more demonstrations if they deemed the ballot flawed.
About 3,000 people had gathered in the rain at a large square beside
Yerevan’s Opera House today by 5:45 p.m.
Sargsyan became prime minister when his predecessor, Andranik
Margarian, died in office in March. The former defense minister has
said he may stand for the presidency next year, when incumbent Robert
Kocharian stands down.
Armenia is in a sixth consecutive year of economic growth of more
than 10 percent per year, Foreign Minister Oskanian said. The number
of people living in poverty has fallen from 56 percent to 27 percent
in the last 2 1/2 years, Sargsyan said.
The U.S. also has interests in neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan. A
crude-oil pipeline runs from the Azeri capital Baku across Georgia to
the Turkish Black Sea port of Ceyhan.
Armenia has no diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan or Turkey. It
fought a war with Azerbaijan over the disputed region of
Nagorno-Karabakh. The region has a majority ethnic-Armenian
population and unilaterally declared independence in 1991. It is
shown on maps distributed by the United Nations as being part of
Azerbaijan and is completely surrounded by that country. Both
Sargsyan and Kocharian come from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Sargsyan has said he wants to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute
and establish diplomatic relations with Turkey “without any
preconditions.”