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ARMENIAN PRESIDENT'S PARTY 'TO KEEP POWER'
MWC News
http://mwcnews.net/news/europe/18709-armenian-president.html
May 6 2012
Media with Conscience
Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan's Republican Party is on course to
win Sunday's parliamentary election, an exit poll showed after voting
ended in the South Caucasus country.
The exit poll by the Gallup International Association showed Prosperous
Armenia, the Republican Party's partner in the previous coalition
government, was set to finish second.
It put the Republican Party on 44.44 per cent, and Prosperous Armenia
on 28.81 per cent.
Opinion polls had suggested that the Republican party was ahead of
the Prosperous Armenia party, led by Gagik Tsarukian, a super-rich
former arm wrestling champion.
"I want everything to be calm, peaceful and in accordance with our
laws today, tomorrow and the day afterwards. This is a guarantee of
progress," Sarkisian told journalists after casting his ballot in
Yerevan, the capital.
Vote conduct scrutinised
Around 2.5 million people, out of a population of 3.3 million people,
were eligible to vote in the elections, which was contested by eight
parties and one bloc.
Some 350 European observers and 31,000 local monitors are scrutinising
the conduct of the polls.
"I am for change but without drastic upheavals. We need stability,"
one voter at a polling station in the capital, electrician Garnik
Khacheian, told the AFP news agency.
"I voted for fairness. It's impossible to live in a country where
human rights are not observed, where there is no work and there are the
very rich and those who have nothing," said unemployed voter Alvard,
who declined to give her surname.
Sarkisian had been criticised for continuing Friday's campaign event
after the incident which saw scores of promotional balloons burst
into flames as people screamed in panic.
The elections are the biggest test of the ex-Soviet state's fragile
democratic credentials since a disputed presidential vote in 2008
which ended in fatal clashes.
The Armenian National Congress opposition bloc led by Levon
Ter-Petrosian, a former president, has alleged that the governing party
was planning to rig the vote to keep power and has threatened protests.
"If the elections are normal, we will agree with any result,"
Ter-Petrosian said after voting.
Demonstrations have also not been ruled out by Prosperous Armenia,
whose leader Tsarukian is seen by supporters as a benevolent hero
for his donations to the poor.
Campaigning ended in chaos on Friday when scores of gas-filled balloons
exploded at a Republican party rally in Yerevan led by Sarkisian,
unleashing a fireball into the air and injuring almost 150 people.
The authorities promised an unprecedentedly clean contest for the
131-seat National Assembly in the hope of avoiding any turmoil after
battles between riot police and opposition supporters four years ago
left 10 people dead.
A pre-poll report by observers from the Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) did not register systematic violations,
although media reports alleged that some parties have been bribing
potential voters.
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.
MWC News
http://mwcnews.net/news/europe/18709-armenian-president.html
May 6 2012
Media with Conscience
Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan's Republican Party is on course to
win Sunday's parliamentary election, an exit poll showed after voting
ended in the South Caucasus country.
The exit poll by the Gallup International Association showed Prosperous
Armenia, the Republican Party's partner in the previous coalition
government, was set to finish second.
It put the Republican Party on 44.44 per cent, and Prosperous Armenia
on 28.81 per cent.
Opinion polls had suggested that the Republican party was ahead of
the Prosperous Armenia party, led by Gagik Tsarukian, a super-rich
former arm wrestling champion.
"I want everything to be calm, peaceful and in accordance with our
laws today, tomorrow and the day afterwards. This is a guarantee of
progress," Sarkisian told journalists after casting his ballot in
Yerevan, the capital.
Vote conduct scrutinised
Around 2.5 million people, out of a population of 3.3 million people,
were eligible to vote in the elections, which was contested by eight
parties and one bloc.
Some 350 European observers and 31,000 local monitors are scrutinising
the conduct of the polls.
"I am for change but without drastic upheavals. We need stability,"
one voter at a polling station in the capital, electrician Garnik
Khacheian, told the AFP news agency.
"I voted for fairness. It's impossible to live in a country where
human rights are not observed, where there is no work and there are the
very rich and those who have nothing," said unemployed voter Alvard,
who declined to give her surname.
Sarkisian had been criticised for continuing Friday's campaign event
after the incident which saw scores of promotional balloons burst
into flames as people screamed in panic.
The elections are the biggest test of the ex-Soviet state's fragile
democratic credentials since a disputed presidential vote in 2008
which ended in fatal clashes.
The Armenian National Congress opposition bloc led by Levon
Ter-Petrosian, a former president, has alleged that the governing party
was planning to rig the vote to keep power and has threatened protests.
"If the elections are normal, we will agree with any result,"
Ter-Petrosian said after voting.
Demonstrations have also not been ruled out by Prosperous Armenia,
whose leader Tsarukian is seen by supporters as a benevolent hero
for his donations to the poor.
Campaigning ended in chaos on Friday when scores of gas-filled balloons
exploded at a Republican party rally in Yerevan led by Sarkisian,
unleashing a fireball into the air and injuring almost 150 people.
The authorities promised an unprecedentedly clean contest for the
131-seat National Assembly in the hope of avoiding any turmoil after
battles between riot police and opposition supporters four years ago
left 10 people dead.
A pre-poll report by observers from the Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) did not register systematic violations,
although media reports alleged that some parties have been bribing
potential voters.
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.