By empty (4/17/2003 issue of the CACI Analyst)
The presidential press service said in a statement released on 17 April that Robert Kocharian will not comply with a Constitutional Court\'s proposal of 16 April to hold a \"referendum of confidence\" to allay widespread doubts about the validity of the February-March presidential election. That proposal was contained in the Constitutional Court\'s ruling rejecting an appeal by defeated presidential candidate Stepan Demirchian that the poll be annulled in the light of alleged procedural, legal, and constitutional violations. Vahan Hovannisian, one of the leaders of the Yerevan Bureau of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutiun which backs Kocharian, argued on 17 April that the Constitutional Court\'s proposal to hold a \"referendum of confidence\" contradicts its simultaneous ruling that the presidential election outcome is legal and valid.The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.
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