Yerevan - With more than half of the ballots counted, Prime Minister Ara Harutiunian's Free Motherland Party was winning 46 percent of the May 23 vote, with outgoing parliament's speaker Ashot Ghulian-led Democrats at 31 percent, ARF-Dashnaktsutiun at 18 per cent and Communists at five percent, news agencies reported citing NKR's Central Election Commission.
Karabakh's National Assembly is made up of 33 seats, of which 17 will be proportionally distributed among political parties than win more than six percent of the vote. The other 16 seats are filled via elections in single-mandate constituencies.
In all nearly 67,000 of more than 95,000 eligible voters cast their ballots, making for a 70 percent turnout. More than 100 foreign observers, including several members of parliament, were on hand to monitor the vote.
Previous election held in 2005 gave Mr. Ghulian's Democrats a plurality of the vote, followed by Free Motherland and Dashnaktsutiun, like this year, in third position.
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