The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is self-proclaimed and not recognized on the territory of Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, it has a state structure in the form of a presidential-parliamentary republic, where the president and prime minister are the highest officials of the executive branch, and the National Assembly is the highest legislative body.
On July 19, 2012, regular presidential elections were held in NKR, in which incumbent President Bako Sahakyan, former Deputy Defense Minister Vitaly Balasanyan and Vice-Rector of the Stepanakert branch of Yerevan Agrarian University Arkady Soghomonyan took part.
According to the CEC of the unrecognized republic, 73 thousand voters expressed their will, 47 thousand of them voted for the incumbent head of the republic Bako Sahakyan, 20 thousand voted in favor of Vitaly Balasanyan.
The exacerbation of the internal political situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, usual for the post-Soviet space, did not happen - the winner's rivals recognized the results of the elections. However, Vitaly Balasanyan did not congratulate the newly elected president, explaining this by a number of violations at polling stations.
The world community, naturally, did not recognize the elections as legal. Nevertheless, they did not turn a blind eye to them, and a number of representatives of international institutions were present in Nagorno-Karabakh on election day.
After that, the co-chairs of the Armenian Group of the US Congress Frank Pallone and Ed Royce even publicly gave a high assessment of the quality of the elections held in NKR.
Official Baku demanded from the West not to allow elections at all, and then declared all international observers persona non grata. There were over a hundred of them from Austria, Russia, USA, Bulgaria, Hungary, Cyprus, Poland, Ireland, Czech Republic, Uruguay, Argentina, Israel.
Representatives of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and also the unrecognized Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic came to the elections.
All observers confirmed that the elections were held in accordance with generally accepted norms of democracy. The inauguration of the newly elected NKR President Bako Sahakyan is scheduled for September 7. The second time he will take the oath of allegiance to his people, putting his hand on the Constitution and the Gospel dating from the 17th century.
