ARMENIA REACHES NEW STAGE OF DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT

Arka News Agency, Armenia
May 14 2007

YEREVAN, May 14. /ARKA/. Armenia has reached a new stage of democratic
development, Aaron Adibekyan, director of Sociometer independent
sociologic center, said on Monday.

In his opinion, now people having reached success in various areas
appeared in political arena.

Adibekyan thinks these parliamentary elections show that organizational
resources and relations with the community, not bribery and
administrative capacity play the key role now.

As an example, he pointed out that the success of Republican Party,
Prosperous Armenia and Dashnaktsutyun in parliamentary elections was
mainly due to their strong organizational resources.

22 parties and one bloc competed for seats in National Assembly.

According to Central Election Commission’s latest report, Republican
Party of Armenia scored 32.8%, i.e. 457thnd 32 of 1mln 351thnd 669
votes cast on Sunday. Prosperous Armenia won 14.7% (200thnd 443)
and Dashknaktsutyun 12.7% (177thnd 192).

Only two opposition parties – Orinats Yerkir with its 6.8% or 95thnd
256 votes and Heritage with 5.8% or 80thnd 890 votes – got seats
in parliament.

The remaining 16 candidate parties and one bloc failed to cross
a five-percent benchmark (5% for parties and 7% for bloc) though
pro-governmental United Labor Party and opposition National Unity
and New Times came close to it.

Central Election Commission says 1 million 351 thousand 669 or 59.9%
have voted on polling day.

According to Armenian Police Department’s figures 2 million 285
thousand 830 people are eligible to vote in the country.

13 thousand 808 representatives of 53 local organization and 767
members of six international missions observed the elections.