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Armenia opposition resort to protest against vote violations

20 February 2008 11:22 (UTC +04:00)

"There were very serious violations during voting, including ballot-stuffing, kidnapping and the beating of our representatives at the polling stations," Arman Musinyan, a spokesman at the campaign headquarters of opposition challenger Levon Ter-Petrosyan, told Reuters.
"Weâ€™ll definitely hold a rally in the centre of Yerevan tomorrow," Musinyan said.
Sarksyan, who has vowed to continue the policies of incumbent Robert Kocharyan, had an unassailable lead with 782,233 votes -- or 56 percent -- of the 1,408,712 ballots counted, a spokeswoman for the Central Election Committee said.
The results were from 85 percent of the ballots counted. The commissionâ€™s spokeswoman did not give percentages for candidates and said the body would wait until all ballots had been counted before doing so.
But an opposition aide said Ter-Petrosyan, Armeniaâ€™s first president after it won independence from the Soviet Union, was the real winner, and complained of violations including ballot-stuffing, kidnapping and the beating supporters.
Ter-Petrosyanâ€™s camp called for a protest rally in the capital Yerevan.
Election observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe will give their verdict on the vote on Wednesday. Their assessment is likely to be a key factor in whether the opposition protests build momentum.
Previous elections in Armenia have been followed by days of opposition protests alleging ballot fraud.