SEPARATIST SAAKYAN WINS KARABAKH POLL

Reuters
Peninsula On-line, Qatar
July 21 2007

STEPANAKERT ~U Bako Saakyan, a former security chief, has won 85 per
cent of the votes in a leadership election in the Azeri breakaway
region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the central election commission said
yesterday.

The data is preliminary and final results was to be announced later.

Karabakh declared independence from Azerbaijan in the 1990s but no
country has recognised it. The 46-year-old Saakyan says he wants full
independence for the enclave from Azerbaijan, and has vowed to make the
sliver of land and its 140,000 people "an example of democratic rule".

"I like Saakyan’s programme because he promised to raise pensions and
give financial assistance to people," said 66-year-old Shura Sachinyan,
an ethnic Armenian refugee.

Muslim Azerbaijan, which lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh after a
war against Armenia in the early 1990s, has denounced the election
as illegal under international law.

Analysts said the vote could be used by the ethnic Armenian enclave
to affirm independence from Azerbaijan.

Karabakh leader Arkady Gukasyan, who is stepping down after holding
the post for two five-year terms, has tried to make a parallel with
the Serbian province of Kosovo, saying that if Kosovo gets independence
then Karabakh should have it too.

The election was largely personality driven. Saakyan’s main rival,
the 39-year-old Masis Mailyan, who also wants full independence,
has won just over 12 per cent of the vote, the preliminary data showed.

The commission said turnout had been around 77 per cent.

Many of the Azeri minority fled during fighting which killed more
than 35,000 people before a ceasefire was brokered in 1994.