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ARMENIA RULING PARTY WINS PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
The West Australian
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/13621778/armenia-ruling-party-wins-parliamentary-elections/
May 7 2012
YEREVAN (AFP) - Armenia's governing party on Monday won parliamentary
elections seen as a test of the ex-Soviet state's fragile democracy
but opposition leaders alleged violations and vowed protests.
European election observers from the OSCE praised the election
process as competitive but said it had been undermined by a series
of democratic failings including pressure on voters and an inadequate
complaints process.
President Serzh Sarkisian's Republican party took 44.05 percent of
the vote after all ballots from Sunday's contest were counted, the
Central Election Commission said.
Its outgoing coalition partner turned poll rival, the Prosperous
Armenia party led by a millionaire former arm wrestling champion,
came second with 30.20 per cent.
Trailing far behind, the third-place opposition Armenian National
Congress bloc scraped into parliament with 7.10 percent, according
to final preliminary results posted on the commission's website.
Three other parties, Heritage, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutiun) and Rule of Law also managed to secure minor
representation in the legislative body by scoring just over five
percent.
The authorities had promised Armenia's fairest ever polls as they
sought to avoid a repeat of protests which ended in clashes between
riot police and opposition supporters after disputed presidential
elections in 2008 that left 10 people dead.
"Armenia deserves recognition for its electoral reforms and its
open and peaceful campaign environment but, in this race, several
stakeholders too often failed to comply with the law and election
commissions too often failed to enforce it," the OSCE observer mission
to Armenia said in a statement.
"As a result, the international commitments to which Armenia has
freely subscribed were not always respected," the statement said.
The observer mission said that the freedom of assembly and expression
were generally respected during the campaign but the lack of public
confidence in the electoral process was "an issue of great concern".
It also said that pressure on voters and an inadequate complaints
process created an "unequal playing field".
Local media have also reported allegations of polling-day violations
including incidents of parties bribing voters but it was not clear
how widespread such incidents were.
A monitoring alliance including Prosperous Armenia and the Armenian
National Congress opposition bloc led by former president Levon
Ter-Petrosian has expressed "doubts about the legitimacy of the
electoral process".
Ter-Petrosian's bloc, which led the demonstrations against the alleged
2008 vote-rigging that ended in violence, said it would stage a mass
protest in Yerevan on Tuesday evening.
Campaigning in the Caucasus state of 3.3 million people mainly focused
on issues of unemployment, poverty and emigration rather than Armenia's
long-running political disputes with neighbours Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Landlocked and impoverished Armenia has suffered economically because
its borders with both countries are closed.
No final peace deal has been signed with Azerbaijan since the 1990s
war over the region of Nagorny Karabakh, and gun battles often erupt
along the front line.
Efforts to restore diplomatic relations with Turkey, which could have
ended decades of enmity over the World War I genocide of Armenians
under the Ottoman empire, have also been frozen.
The West Australian
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/13621778/armenia-ruling-party-wins-parliamentary-elections/
May 7 2012
YEREVAN (AFP) - Armenia's governing party on Monday won parliamentary
elections seen as a test of the ex-Soviet state's fragile democracy
but opposition leaders alleged violations and vowed protests.
European election observers from the OSCE praised the election
process as competitive but said it had been undermined by a series
of democratic failings including pressure on voters and an inadequate
complaints process.
President Serzh Sarkisian's Republican party took 44.05 percent of
the vote after all ballots from Sunday's contest were counted, the
Central Election Commission said.
Its outgoing coalition partner turned poll rival, the Prosperous
Armenia party led by a millionaire former arm wrestling champion,
came second with 30.20 per cent.
Trailing far behind, the third-place opposition Armenian National
Congress bloc scraped into parliament with 7.10 percent, according
to final preliminary results posted on the commission's website.
Three other parties, Heritage, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutiun) and Rule of Law also managed to secure minor
representation in the legislative body by scoring just over five
percent.
The authorities had promised Armenia's fairest ever polls as they
sought to avoid a repeat of protests which ended in clashes between
riot police and opposition supporters after disputed presidential
elections in 2008 that left 10 people dead.
"Armenia deserves recognition for its electoral reforms and its
open and peaceful campaign environment but, in this race, several
stakeholders too often failed to comply with the law and election
commissions too often failed to enforce it," the OSCE observer mission
to Armenia said in a statement.
"As a result, the international commitments to which Armenia has
freely subscribed were not always respected," the statement said.
The observer mission said that the freedom of assembly and expression
were generally respected during the campaign but the lack of public
confidence in the electoral process was "an issue of great concern".
It also said that pressure on voters and an inadequate complaints
process created an "unequal playing field".
Local media have also reported allegations of polling-day violations
including incidents of parties bribing voters but it was not clear
how widespread such incidents were.
A monitoring alliance including Prosperous Armenia and the Armenian
National Congress opposition bloc led by former president Levon
Ter-Petrosian has expressed "doubts about the legitimacy of the
electoral process".
Ter-Petrosian's bloc, which led the demonstrations against the alleged
2008 vote-rigging that ended in violence, said it would stage a mass
protest in Yerevan on Tuesday evening.
Campaigning in the Caucasus state of 3.3 million people mainly focused
on issues of unemployment, poverty and emigration rather than Armenia's
long-running political disputes with neighbours Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Landlocked and impoverished Armenia has suffered economically because
its borders with both countries are closed.
No final peace deal has been signed with Azerbaijan since the 1990s
war over the region of Nagorny Karabakh, and gun battles often erupt
along the front line.
Efforts to restore diplomatic relations with Turkey, which could have
ended decades of enmity over the World War I genocide of Armenians
under the Ottoman empire, have also been frozen.