Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Wounded Armenian Candidate Will Not Delay Presidential Vote

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Wounded Armenian Candidate Will Not Delay Presidential Vote

    WOUNDED ARMENIAN CANDIDATE WILL NOT DELAY PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

    By Hasmik Lazarian
    YEREVAN | Tue Feb 5, 2013 1:25pm GMT

    (Reuters) - An Armenian presidential candidate who was shot last
    week will not seek a postponement to this month's election to avoid
    the risk of further instability in the former Soviet republic, his
    lawyer and other backers said on Tuesday.

    Paruyr Hayrikyan, an outsider in the race in which President Serzh
    Sarksyan is widely expected to win a new five-year term, was shot in
    the shoulder on January 31 near his home in Yerevan.

    He could have asked the Constitutional Court for a two-week
    postponement of the February 18 vote, which would have raised the
    prospect of instability in republic in the volatile South Caucasus
    region that carries oil and natural gas to Europe.

    Hayrikyan did not want to let that happen, a spokesman said.

    "The goal of the attack was to kill Hayrikyan and organise a new
    elections. Taking that into consideration, we want to make sure they do
    not attain their goal," Karo Yeghnukyan, a spokesman for the candidate,
    told a news conference.

    Stability is vital to the nation of 2.3 million to woo investors and
    boost an economy struggling with regional isolation and the effects
    of a war with neighbouring Azerbaijan in the 1990s.

    Violence flared after Sarksyan's election in 2008, leaving 10 people
    dead when police clashed with supporters of former president and
    opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan who protested for days on
    the streets of the capital.

    The government imposed a state of emergency during the unrest in the
    landlocked nation that borders Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran and Georgia.

    Hayrikyan's lawyer, Levon Baghdasaryan, confirmed that he would let
    the election go ahead as planned despite difficulties in continuing
    his campaign.

    "Regardless of the fact that as a result of the assassination attempt
    insurmountable hurdles have arisen, Hayrikyan will not appeal to the
    Constitutional Court with a demand to postpone the day of presidential
    election," he said.

    Doctors have removed the bullet and said Hayrikyan's life was not
    in danger, but he remained in hospital on Tuesday. Police have not
    named any suspects.

    Hayrikyan, a pro-Western former Soviet dissident, said hours after
    the shooting that he suspected a foreign secret service and suggested
    he was referring to Russia, which is Armenia's main ally and has a
    military base on its territory.

    Its relations with Azerbaijan have been severely strained since a war
    over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan that is controlled by
    ethnic Armenians, which killed some 30,000 people before a cease-fire
    in 1994.

    Relations with Turkey have also been fraught after Ankara closed its
    border with Armenia in 1993 in support of ethnic kin in Azerbaijan.

    Armenia wants Turkey to recognise mass killings of Armenians by
    Ottoman Turks in 1915 as genocide.

    Hayrikyan, 63, leads a moderate opposition party, the National
    Self-determination Union and ran for president in 2003.

    (Writing by Thomas Grove; Editing by Alison Williams)

Working...
X