ARMENIA: Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan inaugurated for the second term as opposition supporters protest in Yerevan

Record ID: 590856

  • Title: ARMENIA: Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan inaugurated for the second term as opposition supporters protest in Yerevan
  • Date: 9th April 2013
  • Summary: RALLY IN PROGRESS HOVANNISIAN WALKING AS SUPPORTERS CHANT
  • Embargoed: 24th April 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Armenia
  • Country: Armenia
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVABL90QGQHMZOP2A37BTPABBQIB
  • Story Text: Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan was inaugurated for his second term on Tuesday (April 9), amidst protesters rallying in the capital city, demanding he resign after an election his opponents allege was fixed.
    Sarksyan said in his inauguration speech that developing the economy, ensuring the rule of law and deepening democracy were his top priorities, along with the peaceful resolution of the dispute with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

    "The second constitutional presidential term has its advantages and difficulties. The main advantage is the accumulated experience, which is of high value in this job. Additional difficulties are connected with the higher expectations and demands of the people. I will do my best to translate these expectations and demands into reality," Sarksyan said.

    "I will single out the main three of them, emigration, unemployment, poverty. Tackling these problems are priority tasks. An effective and developing economy is the only formula of our success," Sarksyan added.
    Meanwhile, on Yerevan's central Freedom Square, demonstrators, led by Raffi Hovannisian, who came second to Sarksyan according to the official count but claims he won the Feb. 18 poll, rallied as the inauguration was held a few kilometres away.
    The peaceful crowd, of some 12,000 was the biggest at intermittent protests since the election, which cemented Sarksyan's rule over the small ex-Soviet republic in the South Caucasus but added to bitterness among opponents.
    Demonstrators, carrying orange balloons and banners - the colour of Hovannisian's oppositio Heritage party chanted slogans such as 'Serzh, go away!' and 'Long live Armenia!'
    "I believe that we are going to bring not only closure and recognition of the genocide, recognition of mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh republic, but we're going to bring friendship, partnershipto all people - to Russia, to the United States, to Europe, and even to Turkey. But first of all, we have to respect our rights and the Armenian people on February 18, respected our own rights and I bow before the Armenian people because nobody believed, and I believed in them," Hovannisian said.
    With security tight, demonstrators marched through the city after the rally but were stopped by police when they tried to approach the presidential residence and turned back toward Freedom Sqauare after these talks with the police.
    There has been no repeat of the violence that erupted after round-the-clock protests that followed Sarksyan's first election in 2008, killing eight activists and two police and in the nation of 3.2 million.
    Foreign governments are watching for signs of instability in mostly Christian Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base and is locked in a territrial dispute with Azerbiajan, its oil-rich, mainly Muslim neighbour.
    Armenia's Constitutional Court last month rejected challenges lodged by Hovannisian over the election, in which which Sarksyan won a five-year term with 58.6 percent of the vote according to the official count.
    Hovannisian, a U.S.-born former foreign minister, received 37 percent. International monitors described the poll as an improvement on previous ones but said it lacked real competition after some of Sarksyan's rivals decided not to run.
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