YEREVAN. – Your have passed through a very difficult but a very good road to build a democratic and a civil society, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) former Vice-President, and International expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES) observation mission’s analyst, Anna Čurdová said during a press conference on Tuesday.   

“The law and the conditions that existed [in Armenia] in 2003 are unmatched with the conditions in 2013. The good work by [Armenia’s electoral] commission members should be commended; they were well prepared. No problem arose in any of the thirteen [polling] precincts we monitored,” she said.  

In Čurdová’s words, the problem of voters with poor vision likewise was resolved in a good way.   

“This is a shocking fact because they not always treat people with problems in such [good] way even in the European countries. None of the precinct commission members hindered the activities of the observers. I want to give a special evaluation to the wonderful atmosphere of your election,” Anna Čurdová concluded, and she congratulated the Armenian people for Monday’s presidential vote.    

As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, in line with preliminary data and as a result of the tally of the ballots that were cast in Armenia’s 1,988 polling precincts, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan received 861,378 votes (58.64%), Raffi Hovannisian garnered 539,674 votes (36.74%), Hrant Bagratyan gathered 31,643 votes (2.15%), Paruyr Hayrikyan earned 18,093 votes (1.23%), Andreas Ghukasyan gained 8,328 votes (0.57%), Arman Melikyan collected 3,520 votes (0.24%), and Vardan Sedrakyan acquired 6,203 votes (0.42%).

Also in line with CEC data, the total number of eligible voters was 2,529,016, and 1,521,931—or 61.18 percent—of them cast their ballots.

The regional electoral commissions were given 2,579,000 ballots, whose 1,052,269 were used, and 50,992 ballots were declared invalid.

Note that Presidential Elections were held in Armenia on Monday, and the seven candidates that ran in the voting were: Ruling Republican Party leader and incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan, opposition Heritage Party Chairman and former FM Raffi Hovannisian, opposition Freedom Party Chairman and former PM Hrant Bagratyan, opposition National Self-Determination Union Chairman Paruyr Hayrikyan, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic former FM Arman Melikyan, “Radio Hay” Company Manager and political scientist Andreas Ghukasyan, and non-party affiliate and epic poetry specialist Vardan Sedrakyan.

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am