YEREVAN, March 4 (RIA Novosti) - An opposition candidate who was running in Armenia’s recent presidential election plans to appeal the vote results in the country’s Constitutional Court on Monday, the Novosti-Armenia news agency reported Sunday citing the headquarters of the candidate, Raffi Hovhannisyan.
Incumbent Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan won the February 18 presidential election in the South Caucasus country, according to the final vote count from all 1,988 polling stations announced by Armenia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) on February 25.
Sargsyan collected 861,373 votes or 58.64 percent, whereas US-born former foreign minister Hovhannisyan, the leader of the Heritage opposition party, came in second, with 539,693 or 36.74 percent of the vote. The remaining five candidates garnered less than three percent each. Voter turnout totaled 60.18 percent, or 1,521,489 registered voters.
Hovhannisyan has not recognized the vote results. His supporters have been holding rallies in the capital Yerevan and other Armenian regions since February 20.
International observers said the Armenian election was generally well-administered, with fundamental freedoms respected, but noted that some key concerns remain, including “a lack of impartiality on the part of the public administration and the misuse of administrative resources.”
