RUSSIA STANDS BY ITS ARMENIAN ALLY IN ELECTION CONTROVERSY.

The Armenian government informed its public yesterday that Russia had deflected OSCE criticism of the government’s conduct of the recent presidential election. At a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, called to discuss that election, the Russian delegation urged that the Armenian Central Election Commission’s viewpoint be given greater weight. It also advised the OSCE’s Office of Human Rights and Democratic Institutions against criticism that could exert a "negative impact" on the internal situation in post-Soviet states. (Armenpress, October 21)

Russia, which cooperates militarily with the Armenian government, openly supported President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s reelection. Boris Yeltsin and Viktor Chernomyrdin issued televised, election-eve endorsements while the military conducted highly publicized joint Russian-Armenian exercises near the Turkish border, capped by an election-eve parade in Yerevan. Russian election observers were the only ones to pronounce the balloting correct. The government-controlled Central Election Commission had presided over the election fraud, and last week expelled from its ranks one of its few members from the opposition coalition.

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