More than 10,000 supporters of Armenian opposition candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan gathered in central Yerevan Wednesday to protest against the preliminary results of the presidential election.
"Let them not doubt, we will struggle until the final victory. We are planning a peaceful protest," Ter-Petrosyan said to his supporters in front of a museum, calling on them to reject the results in a rational way.
"We don't believe the results, and we require a second round or a new election," said Kamelia Tonoyan, one of Ter-Petrosyan's supporters, adding this was just the beginning of the protest.
Security was stepped up in the capital, with large numbers of police patrolling. The protestors marched along the streets in the central city from 5 p.m. till nightfall.
The preliminary results from all 1,923 polling stations show Ter-Petrosyan, the first president of Armenia, in second place with 21.5 percent of the ballots, far behind Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan's 52.86 percent, the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia (CEC) told the press Wednesday.
Sargsyan has already broken the 50-percent threshold of votes required by the Armenian Electoral Code to win the election.
International monitors said the election met their standards Wednesday.
The election is "mostly in line with the country's international commitments," the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a statement, while the Observation Mission of the Commonwealth of Independent States said the election was "free and open."
The final results of the election will be announced by the CEC next Tuesday.
Source: Xinhua
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