VOTERS IN KARABAKH ELECTING NEW PRESIDENT

ARMENPRESS
Jul 19 2007

STEPANAKERT, JULY 19, ARMENPRESS: Voters in Nagorno-Karabakh are
heading to the polls today to elect their next president. All 276
polling stations opened today at 8 am. Residents of Nagorno-Karabakh
can also vote in Yerevan where there is one polling station at its
representation in Armenia.

According to voter lists, there are 91,166 eligible voters. The
polls are being monitored by more than 100 observers from Russia,
Germany, France, Ukraine, Serbia, Italy, Belgium, and also from three
post-Soviet self-proclaimed republics of Abkhazia, Transdniester and
South Ossetia.

The five candidates participating in the ballot are Bako Sahakian,
who is 49 and made his career in the Soviet-era Committee for State
Security (KGB); Masis Maylian, who is in his late 30s and a graduate
of the Vienna Diplomatic Academy; parliament deputy Armen Abgarian;
Nagorno-Karabakh Communist Party leader Hrant Melkumian; and Vanya
Avanesian, a professor at Artsakh State University.

Preliminary results are expected on Friday. Anyone taking over 50
percent of the votes in the first round wins outright.

Bako Saakyan, who is openly supported by the incumbent, is the favorite
to win. His main rival is the region’s deputy foreign minister Masis
Mailyan.