Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Armenia's Top Court Upholds Re-Election of Sargsyan

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

  • Armenia's Top Court Upholds Re-Election of Sargsyan

    The Moscow Times, Russia
    March 17 2013

    Armenia's Top Court Upholds Re-Election of Sargsyan

    17 March 2013 | Issue 5089
    Reuters


    YEREVAN - Armenia's Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected claims
    by two unsuccessful presidential candidates that the Feb. 18 vote was
    rigged, upholding the re-election of incumbent Serzh Sargsyan.

    The main election body had said there were no violations during the
    vote that could have influenced its outcome, while international
    monitors said the ballot was an improvement on previous ones although
    it lacked real competition.

    Investors worry over signs of instability in the South Caucasus
    region, a key transit route for Caspian energy resources to Europe.
    Violence after the 2008 election that first brought Sargsyan in power
    left 10 people dead.

    This time around, Sargsyan won 58.6 percent of votes, but his
    second-placed rival, opposition leader Raffi Hovannisian, asserted
    that he was the real winner and began a declared hunger strike on
    March 10.

    "The decision is to uphold the federal election committee's decision
    from Feb. 25 on the results of the presidential elections from Feb.
    18," said Constitutional Court President Gagik Harutyunyan. The
    decision cannot be appealed.

    Hovannisian, who secured 37 percent of the vote, has staged several
    peaceful protests in the capital, Yerevan, over the lost race and has
    called on Sargsyan to resign.

    "We will continue our political fight within the framework of law and
    constitution until we win," said Hovsep Khurshudyan, a spokesman for
    Hovannisian's Heritage Party.

    Armenia, a landlocked former Soviet republic with a population of 3.2
    million, has a common security treaty with Russia and hosts of one
    Moscow's few foreign military bases.

    It remains in territorial dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan two
    decades after a war between the two over the enclave of
    Nagorno-Karabakh killed some 30,000 people.


    http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/armenias-top-court-upholds-re-election-of-sargsyan/476992.html

Working...
X