ARMENIA AWAITS SECOND DAY OF PROTESTS
press tv
Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:54:56
Government opponents are planning a second day of street protests
following Premier Serzh Sargysyan’s electoral victory on Wednesday.
Some 20,000 protesters marched through Yerevan on Wednesday after
election officials said Sargysyan received enough votes to win the
presidency.
The opponents insist that Tuesday’s elections were marred by widespread
violations and violence targeting opposition activists who monitored
the vote.
They claim that opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian was the
real winner, who will have to fight a difficult battle to possibly
overturn the vote result.
On Wednesday, Arman Musinyan, a spokesman for Ter-Petrosian’s campaign,
accused the governing party of using state resources to influence the
vote and engagement in double voting, ballot stuffing and physical
intimidation.
Musinyan said the protests would not stop until Armenia’s Central
Electoral Commission annulled the results of the election.
But neighboring Russia has signaled its approval of the election,
and international observers issued a generally positive evaluation
of the polls in the ex-Soviet country.
A delegation of international observers from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe on Wednesday described the election
as ‘mostly in line with the country’s international commitments’
but acknowledged that ‘further improvements are necessary’.