AZERBAIJAN BREAKAWAY ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT
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July 20 2007
VOTERS went to the polls today in Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of
Nagorny Karabakh to elect a new president for this isolated, ethnic
Armenian-controlled mountain enclave.
Early results showed Bako Sahakian, a former head of the state security
service, storming to victory.
With 30 per cent of the votes counted, Mr Sahakian was well ahead
with 87.1 per cent of the vote, the central elections commission said.
His nearest rival, deputy foreign minister Masis Maylian, placed a
distant second with 11.2 per cent of the vote.
Officials said they hoped the vote would shore up the region’s
democratic credentials, boosting its efforts to become an
internationally recognised country after 15 years of self-declared
independence.
No country in the world recognises the independence of Karabakh,
and the international community has ignored the vote.
Azerbaijan, which has vowed to regain control of the region, has
already denounced the election as having "no legal effect whatsoever".
Current President Arkady Ghukasian was ineligble to run after two
terms as president.
Many voters said they preferred Mr Sahakian because of his record in
the security services.
"I like Masis very much, but now is not the time for intellectuals,"
said Armen Martirosian, 41, after voting for Mr Sahakian. "As long
as the war is not over we need a strong person in charge."
Voter turnout had reached 76.25 per cent before polls closed at 8pm
local time (1am AEST), the elections commission announced.
At least 25 per cent of voters had to participate for the election
to be valid.
Voting at a school in Stepanakert, Mr Sahakian said he hoped the
election would convince the international community that Karabakh
can be a functioning democratic state.
"We are holding this election to build a civil society and prove to
the world that we want to be a democratic country," he said.
But Mr Maylian, who has accused the authorities of campaigning against
him, said his office had filed 14 complaints with the elections
commission over alleged irregularities.
He rejected claims that he was hurting Karabakh’s chances of winning
international recognition by raising questions about the election’s
democratic credentials.
"If we love our country and we want the civilised world to recognise
us, we must be democratic," he said.
Backed by their ethnic brethren in Armenia, separatists seized Karabakh
and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s.
The war was one of the bloodiest of the many conflicts that followed
the collapse of the Soviet Union, claiming 30,000 lives and forcing
nearly one million people on both sides to flee their homes.
Armenia and Azerbaijan remain officially at war over Karabakh and
the dispute is a major source of instability in the strategic South
Caucasus region wedged between Iran, Russia and Turkey.
Heavily armed and supported by Armenia’s widespread diaspora community,
Karabakh’s 150,000 people have remained defiant in the face of
oil-rich Azerbaijan’s promises to regain control of the region,
by force if necessary.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
