From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Feb 27 2003 - 09:08:21 EST
Armenian president says authorities to be stricter in second round of
polls
Text of report by Armenian news agency Mediamax
Yerevan, 26 February: Incumbent Armenian President Robert Kocharyan said
in Yerevan today that not only his supporters but also opposition
representatives had resorted to violations during the first round of the
presidential elections.
Robert Kocharyan said that despite the opposition's statement on "mass
falsification" of the election results, the violations were minor and
they did not affect the final results.
Robert Kocharyan said that the Armenian authorities would prevent any
attempt at violation "much more strictly" during the second round of the
elections on 5 March.
Asked about whether the fact that the opposition had been able to
allow violations during the elections bore witness to the incumbent
authorities' weakness, Robert Kocharyan said: "This, on the contrary,
bears witness to the authorities' patience. This also bears witness to
the authorities' adherence to the democratic way of development and to
the fact that the authorities offered a civilized game to the
opposition, which unfortunately was not ready for it."
Kocharyan said that this could be proved by the fact that throughout the
election campaign, some opposition candidates had been purposefully
convincing their electorate that the election results would be
inevitably falsified.
Source: Mediamax news agency, Yerevan, in Russian 0928 gmt 26 Feb 03
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