Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ANKARA: Armenia Opp. chief ends hunger strike, calls for protests

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

  • ANKARA: Armenia Opp. chief ends hunger strike, calls for protests

    WorldBulletin.net. Turkey
    March 30 2013


    Armenia opposition chief ends hunger strike, calls for protests

    Armenia's Constitutional Court has rejected challenges lodged by
    defeated Armenian presidential candidate Hovannisian over the Feb. 18
    poll which Sarksyan won with 58.6 percent of the vote.

    World Bulletin/News Desk

    Defeated Armenian presidential candidate Raffi Hovannisian said on
    Friday he was ending a hunger strike over allegations President Serzh
    Sarksyan rigged last month's vote, but vowed to continue street
    protests.

    Armenia's Constitutional Court has rejected challenges lodged by
    Hovannisian over the Feb. 18 poll which Sarksyan won with 58.6 percent
    of the vote. Hovannisian came second with 37 percent.

    The head of the opposition Heritage Party said he would end his
    two-week-old hunger strike on Easter Sunday to make sure he had enough
    energy to keep up his political work.

    "I will complete my modest hunger strike, which was for the sake of
    faith, Motherland, peace and the future," Hovannisian told supporters
    gathered in a central square of the capital Yerevan.

    He called on supporters to hold a rally during Sarksyan's inauguration
    ceremony on April 9.

    Hovannisian, a U.S.-born former foreign minister of the landlocked
    ex-Soviet republic, sent 70 complaints to the electoral commission,
    which responded by saying the documents were based neither on facts
    nor legal evidence.

    International monitors described the poll as an improvement on
    previous ones but said it lacked real competition after some of
    Sarksyan's rivals decided not to run.

    Foreign governments and investors are watching for any sign of
    instability in the country which lies in the volatile South Caucasus
    region, crossed by pipelines carrying Caspian oil and natural gas to
    Europe.

    Landlocked Armenia has a tense relationship with neighbouring
    Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a de facto independent but
    unrecognized state which is internationally recognized as part of
    Azerbaijan but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since a war in
    the 1990s.


    http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=105583

Working...
X