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[Aratta-Kingdom]

Russian observers: NKR elections were transparent, free and legitimate



Russian observers have issued a statement on the outcomes of the presidential elections in Nagorno Karabakh, the NKR CEC. The statement says, in part, “International observers from different states, including the Russian Federation, arrived in Nagorno Karabakh to watch the presidential elections scheduled for July 19, 2007. The Russian observers attended numerous polling stations in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. We were offered success to the work of the Central Election Commission, polling stations and to the process of counting of votes. We also held meetings with some presidential contenders

The Russian observers have made the following conclusions:

1. The NKR CEC made a considerable contribution to make the election professional and trustworthy. The activities of the districts electoral commissions during the elections and counting of votes deserve a high estimation as well.

2. The presidential elections in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic were transparent, free and legitimate.

3. The elections were held on alternative basis: there were 5 contenders.

4. The observers did not fix serious violations in the procedure of registration, voting, counting of votes and transportation
of protocols from the polling stations to the CEC. No facts of interference unauthorized persons in the work of the electoral commissions were fixed either. The shortcomings noticed by the observers were of technical nature. Recommendations on their elimination were taken into account immediately.

5. Transparent ballot boxes were used and secured maximal transparency of the vote. The observers were offered the possibility to freely examine the documentation.

6. We were impressed by the activity of the voters, their motivation and civil stance.

7. The observers thank the NKR Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Central Election Commission and the authorities at various levels for cooperation and assistance rendered to the observation mission, detailed information on the election campaign and freedom of travel.

8. The Russian delegation states that progressive achievements in NKR are obvious.

9. These elections vividly demonstrate that the state system of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic has been formed and is developing towards democracy and stability.

10. The Russian observers with regret learned of non-constructive statements of representatives of some international organizations as regards the presidential elections in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Nagorno Karabakh possesses political, legal and historical ground for the international recognition of its state independence.

11. Democratic achievements of the NKR need support and recognition by the international community, what would promote the settlement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh, establishment of stability and lasting peace in the region. Protraction of final recognition of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic impedes its dynamic development and can cause destabilization in the region.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Representatives from CIS unrecognized states are watching elections of NKR

19.07.2007 17:19

YEREVAN (YERKIR) - Representatives from CIS unrecognized states are watching the presidential elections on NKR. Representatives from Transdnestria, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have arrived in Stepanakert, PanARMENIAN.Net was told at the NKR CEC (Central Electoral Commission).

Representatives of non-governmental organizations and governmental structures from 12 countries participate in observation mission, including from Armenia, USA, Italy, Greece, Germany, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Macedonia, France, Great Britain and Croatia. Some representatives of world leading publications are also observing the electoral process of NKR.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

OBSERVERS FROM U.S. ARE SATISFIED WITH VOTING



Lragir, Armenia
July 20 2007

The observers of the Public International Law and Policy Group
NGO, which monitored the presidential election in NKR, held a news
conference in the morning at the press center in Stepanakert. The CEO
of the Group Paul Williams said the group observed the voting at 47
polling stations and earlier they had met with four candidates and
high-ranking officials of Nagorno-Karabakh. The group stated on the
whole the voting was free, transparent, and in compliance with the
NKR laws and international standards.

In answer to the question on recommendations, Paul Williams said
everything was so very good that they only need to sustain the
democratic process.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

RUSSIAN OBSERVERS ARE SATISFIED WITH KARABAKH ELECTION



Lragir, Armenia
July 20 2007

The Russian observers are satisfied with the Karabakh election, the
director of the institute of the CIS countries Constantine Zatulin
stated on behalf of the Russian delegation.

The Russian delegation includes members of the Russian Duma, members
of the public chamber of Russia, experts, political scientists.

According to Zatulin, many describe Karabakh as unrecognized,
self-proclaimed. "As if there are states which did not proclaim
themselves." "Perhaps this fact makes the people of Karabakh especially
scrupulous regarding elections not to arouse internal shocks and
criticism from the outside," Constantine Zatulin said.

He reminded that now the international community is concerned about the
issue of the independence of Kosovo. "You know the official stance of
Russia on this issue. However, it is possible that the independence
of Kosovo will be recognized. And it seems that NKR where peaceful
life is normalizing stands a chance to attract everyone's attention
to Karabakh," Zatulin said.

[Aratta-Kingdom]

OBSERVER FROM RUSSIA: IT IS TIME FOR INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH'S INDEPENDENCE

DeFacto, Armenia
July 20 2007

It is time for the international community to recognize NKR's
independence, a member of Russian observation delegation, principal
research worker of the Institute of World Economy and International
Relations of Russian Academy of Sciences Professor Victor Shejnis
stated July 20, on the outcomes of the presidential elections held
in NKR.

In his words, some international organizations assert they do not
recognize elections in Nagorno-Karabakh, though Stepanakert has all
legal grounds of an independent state. He noted uncertainty around
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict might result in destabilization in the
region. In his words, the stand of the supporters of recognition of
Nagorno-Karabakh's independence is often considered as pro-Armenian
and anti-Azerbaijani. Shejnis agreed that it was a pro-Armenian stand,
however, it cannot be considered anti-Azerbaijani, especially taking
into consideration the fact that the interests of Azerbaijani people
do not come to imposing their will on Stepanakert, as it used to be
in Soviet period before the beginning of the conflict.

In his turn, a deputy of RF State Duma, Director of CIS Institute
Konstantin Zatoulin, drawing parallels between Kosovo and Karabakh,
stated irrespective of the fact if the international community would
consider Kosovo issue's settlement to be a precedent or not, for
other such territories it will be a chance to draw the international
community's attention to their problems. "The reality is such that
despite Russia's stand, Kosovo will be recognized independent de facto;
both NKR and Kosovo have a chance".

[MosJan]

CEC: Bako Sahakyan officially recognized as President of Nagorno Karabakh Republic
21.07.2007 16:15 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ During its today’s session the CEC of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic has summed up the final results of the presidential elections. The CEC members undersigned a decision, according to which Bako Sahakyan is elected as president with the overwhelming majority of votes.

The Central Electoral Commission has fixed that the total number of eligible citizens is 92 128 according to electoral lists. The CEC has distributed 93 219 bulletins to polling stations. The number of canceled bulletins is 21 934. The number of registered and received by voters bulletins is 71 289 according to signatures. And the number of invalid bulletins is 1 594. The number of votes for each candidate is the following: Armen Abgaryan –867, Vanya Avanesyan –212, Masis Mailyan –8 734, Hrant Melkumyan –564 and Bako Sahakyan –59 316. The number of “for” votes is 69 963, the number of valid bulletins is 69 693. Inaccuracy measure is 15, the NKR CEC Press Office reports.

[HOB]

Andrei ARESHEV

The Political Culture of the People of Nagorno-Karabakh:
On the Road to International Recognition

The July 19 presidential elections in Nagorno Karabakh met with quite a wide international response. It should be mentioned that the holding of referendums and elections at different levels have long become part of the political culture of the small state of Karabakh. 2 nation-wide referendums were held here in the past 16 years (December 10, 1991 – on the issue of proclaiming independence, held in the hardest conditions of the war with Azerbaijan, and on December 10,2006 – on the adoption of the Constitution) as well as 4 election cycles of the presidential and parliamentary elections and the elections to local bodies of authority.

The latest elections were unusual in their turn-up. People began to queue up long before the polling stations were opened. Each station had complete polling lists presented well in advance; transparent ballot boxes were used. There were no special polling stations for servicemen who now voted according to the additional polling lists at regular polling stations. Nothing suggestive of any falsification or discrepancies between the results of the voting and the genuine expression of the people’s will was registered.

Observers from Russia (including State Duma delegates and the Auditing Chamber officials as well as a number of people from other states and NGOs were unanimous in their assessment of the good preparation of the elections and their unconditional correspondence to democratic standards. Nevertheless, statements made by people from a number of international organisations were of a somewhat different character. Representatives of the EU Parliamentary Assembly and some other bodies emphasised the lack of the international recognition of the status of the Nagorno Karabakh republic, stressing that the events during and after the election could allegedly negatively affect the negotiation process over the problem of Nagorno Karabakh.. However, formulation of the terms of recognition of an individual state in many respects has a conditional character.

As for the negotiations process, the main obstacle to its progress is the irreconcilable stance taken by the official Baku. It appears that officials in the Azerbaijani capital are not too eager to see the settlement of the conflict, probably in belief that nothing should be sacrificed at present if everything can be gained at once later.

Unfortunately, the recent visit of Armenian and Azeri cultural workers to Stepanakert, Shusha,Yerevan and Baku was not an exception to the rule. The trip ended in a long speech delivered by Ilham Aliev on the theme of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity (even though it was strange how the Azeri president failed to speak on the restoration of the Soviet Union, of which the Azerbaijanian Soviet Republic and the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous region in its administrative jurisdiction once was). No matter what, all this did not significantly affect the organisation and the course of voting. Neither it could affect those. An entire new generation has grown up in the Nagorno Karabakh, and it does not occur to it them that a return to the past is ever possible. The plaques carrying the portraits of their deceased relations and neighbours can be found in every city or village; they are a tangible reminder of what the “cultural autonomy” within the borders of the Azerbaihanian Soviet Socialist Republic meant for them.

The traces of war are still seen not only in Shusha (whose restoration only began a short while ago) but also in remote settlements in the Mardakert and Gadrut districts, where there still are houses with the walls peppered by bullets and submachine guns fire. So it is not accidental that the programmes of the candidates for the presidency at the polls of July 19,2007 chiefly focused on the socio-economic issues.

The residents of Nagorno Karabakh are primarily concerned over the solution of the unemployment problem and creation of new jobs, building new enterprises and attraction of investments, increasing pensions and wages. The programmes of the presidential candidates were oriented precisely on this. For example, the social programme of the winner of the elections Bako Saakian suggests increasing pensions in the coming three years two and a half times and ensure the growth of the average wages in the coming five years by 200 per cent. A serious attention will also be given to the development of the agricultural sector, and raising the degree of authority of local bodies of power, among other things.
* * *

Traces of a certain intrigue were seen through the entire election campaign in Nagorno Karabakh. The pre-election struggle meant many things. At the same time, there exists in the republic the concord on key issues it faces, so the emergence of an alternative “government” of say, the like of the one in South Ossetia, that would declare its consent to be dependent on Baku, is out of the question. The foreign policies positions shared by the two principal co-runners for presidency (including former head of the republic’s National Security Service Bako Saakian and Deputy Foreign Minister Masis Mailian) had no significant differences. Outside observers might view this as an inalienable attribute of the “fortress state” or the “garrison state” as some liberal columnists like to refer to Nagorno Karabakh. But the issues of security are of supreme importance to the local residents as their future depends on their selection of this or that version of their solution.

The most acute problem is that of the so-called “occupied” territories (to use the terms employed by the Azeri side). Stepanakert views the situation unlike people in Brussels and Strasburg. The districts that in the early 1990s were under the control of Azeri armed units are at astone’s throw from the windows of even not the highest buildings in the Nagorno Karabakh capital. Not only Shusha, from which Stepanakert was shelled in deadly attacks. They include the present-day suburb of the capital of Nagorno Karabakh, Kirkijan, and settlements Djamillu, Djangasan and Hodjalu where intensive construction was going on during the period of the government of the Organisational Committee for the republic of Nagorno Karabakh headed by V.Polyanichko, that was later turned into a major military base (presently the settlement of Ivanian). Other districts that are now known as “the safety belt” (along with their entrance infrastructure) also have strategic significance. Not only the Goris-Lachin-Stepanakert main road, but also the Mardakert-Kelbadjar road that was heavily used in the early 1990s to boost the Azeri military units in the Kelbadjar district that borders on Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.(where there are now refugees from the Shaumian district of the Nagorno Karabakh republic that was captured in the summer of 1992). Other asphalt roads (as was typical of the Soviet times) interconnected Armenian settlements almost exclusively via the adjacent Azeri districts.

That means that the return to the political, and consequently, the military control over the territories within the administrative borders of the former Republic of Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan, or in the adjacent territories without some sort of firm guarantees would inevitably mean the return to the situation of 1991-1992, when the residents of Nagorno Karabakh found themselves in a virtually all-round siege and faced the prospects of total expulsion or even a physical destruction. The best guarantee to prevent the tragic events of the past in the conditions of the present-day erosion of international law from returning is to have modern armed forces. The Nagorno Karabakh Army of Defence has a firm control of the line of contact with Azernaijan.
* * *

The elections held in Nagorno Karabakh will provide a significant impetus for the continuation of the negotiations process that is now in the state of half-consciousness. But to render the negotiations constructive would only become possible after Stepanakert begins to participate. There are signs of another stage of restoration of the activities of the co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group. Braiza visited Yerevan on July 30th, 2007. The plans of the tireless American include a visit to Moscow on August 2, for a regular round of consultations with the c-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk group (Russia, France and the United States). A visit to Azerbaijan is slated as a follow-up to that. But by and large Braiza does not believe that any shifts in the process of the Karabbakh settlement could be expected in the near future. True, it is hard to expect any progress, given the continued attempts to solve the Karabakh problem without taking into account the ideas its residents have on that score.

Russia’s stance on the non-recognised states on the post-Soviet space is also very important.. Observers have long registered the absence of the response of the Russian Foreign Ministry concerning the elections in Karabakh. This can be assessed as a move in a right direction. Nevertheless, Russia’s ties with Nagorno Kaarabakh need to be intensified regardless of the present-day objective and subjective limitations. The objective factors (clearly understood by Stepanakert) include, primarily, the absence of a common frontier, whereas the subjective ones include Moscow’s wariness over causing new complications in its relations with Azerbaijan.

Political problems continue to make the life of ordinary people seriously harder. Telephone and mail connections between Moscow and Karabakh have been hard to establish for many years. There is no aviation links despite the availability of an airport, so transportation costs are outrageous. This situation can hardly be called normal, as there are quite comfortable conditions for doing business, and a high degree of social safety. Despite being almost totally sealed by the siege, the republic builds modern new enterprises, cattle breeding farms and agricultural processing companies along with state-of-the-art hotels and recreation zones; natural gas pipelines are connecting remote settlements and villages with the centre. Still Nagorno Karabakh remains chiefly an untapped area. Its significant resources (the power sector in particular) are enormous in terms of the regional scope, while its transport and tourist infrastructures are in need of serious investments.

Hesitation of politicians should not be in the way of developing the Russian-Karabakh cooperation in the cultural and humanitarian areas, as well as at the level of parliaments and NGOs. The problem of establishing in Stepanakert of the Russian cultural centre, new schools and classes for the speakers of Russian, etc, has not been settled yet. It should be recalled that people born in Nagorno Karabakh whose total number is about 1 million (with only 14% now living in Nagorno Karabakh) are in their preponderance people of both Armenian and Russian cultures. Many have long been living in Russia; they could significantly contribute to the strengthening of Russia’s political, economic and cultural positions in both Karabakh and Armenia, and in the whole of the Caucasian region.

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