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VOTERS IN REBEL KARABAKH ELECT NEW PRESIDENT
by Michael Mainville
Agence France Presse -- English
July 19, 2007 Thursday 7:33 PM GMT
Stepanakert, Azerbaijan
Voters went to the polls Thursday 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 percent of the votes counted, Sahakian was well ahead with
87.1 percent of the vote, the central elections commission said.
His nearest rival, deputy foreign minister Masis Maylian, placed a
distant second with 11.2 percent of the vote.
Officials said they hoped the vote would shore up the region's
democratic credentials, boosting its efforts to become an
internationally recognized 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 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 Sahakian. "As long as
the war is not over we need a strong person in charge."
Voter turnout had reached 76.25 percent before polls closed at 8:00
pm local time (1500 GMT), the elections commission announced. At least
25 percent of voters had to participate for the election to be valid.
Voting at a school in Stepanakert, 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 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 civilized world to recognize
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.
Sporadic clashes continue along Karabakh's border.
A full-blown conflict could derail Western-backed efforts to build
a corridor of pipelines to carry Azerbaijani and Central Asian oil
and gas through the South Caucasus to Europe.
International mediation to resolve the conflict has repeatedly failed.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned the vote
Thursday as a sign of Armenia's "aggression" against Muslim Azerbaijan.
"The so-called 'elections' gravely violate relevant norms and
principles of international law... This act and its results therefore
have no legal effect," secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said
in a statement.
The OIC urged an "immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of
Armenian occupying forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan."
by Michael Mainville
Agence France Presse -- English
July 19, 2007 Thursday 7:33 PM GMT
Stepanakert, Azerbaijan
Voters went to the polls Thursday 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 percent of the votes counted, Sahakian was well ahead with
87.1 percent of the vote, the central elections commission said.
His nearest rival, deputy foreign minister Masis Maylian, placed a
distant second with 11.2 percent of the vote.
Officials said they hoped the vote would shore up the region's
democratic credentials, boosting its efforts to become an
internationally recognized 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 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 Sahakian. "As long as
the war is not over we need a strong person in charge."
Voter turnout had reached 76.25 percent before polls closed at 8:00
pm local time (1500 GMT), the elections commission announced. At least
25 percent of voters had to participate for the election to be valid.
Voting at a school in Stepanakert, 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 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 civilized world to recognize
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.
Sporadic clashes continue along Karabakh's border.
A full-blown conflict could derail Western-backed efforts to build
a corridor of pipelines to carry Azerbaijani and Central Asian oil
and gas through the South Caucasus to Europe.
International mediation to resolve the conflict has repeatedly failed.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned the vote
Thursday as a sign of Armenia's "aggression" against Muslim Azerbaijan.
"The so-called 'elections' gravely violate relevant norms and
principles of international law... This act and its results therefore
have no legal effect," secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said
in a statement.
The OIC urged an "immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of
Armenian occupying forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan."