Armenian PM wins presidential poll

Moscow, Feb 20 (UNI) Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisyan has won the presidential election, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said today.

With 100 per cent of the votes counted, the CEC declared Mr Sarkisyan the winner of the presidential race in the former Soviet republic with 52.86 per cent of the votes, RIA Novosti reported.

His nearest rivals, Armenia's first President Levon-Ter-Petrosyan and ex-parliamentary speaker Artur Bagdasaryan received 21.5 per cent and 11.6 per cent of the votes respectively.

Vaan Ovannisyan, a deputy parliamentary speaker and a member of the Dashnaktsutyun party's bureau, received 6.1 per cent of the votes.

Five other candidates failed to clear the one per cent threshold.

A total of 1.67 million people took part in the election, with voter turnout of 69.2 per cent. The polls were monitored by 14,000 observers from 39 local and six international organisations.

UNI XC SKB AS1703