By Hasmik Mkrtchyan and Margarita Antidze
YEREVAN (Reuters) - Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyanwon a presidential election on Tuesday, an exit poll showed,but his opponents said the vote had been rigged and calledtheir supporters onto the streets to protest.
Sarksyan, who has said he will continue the policies ofoutgoing President Robert Kocharyan, won 57 percent of thevote, the exit poll showed.
Opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan, first president ofArmenia after it won independence from the Soviet Union, scored17 percent, according to the poll by Britain's Populus pollstercarried out for Armenian public television.
But Ter-Petrosyan's aides said he was the real winner andannounced a protest rally in the capital Yerevan on Wednesday.
"The first president of Armenia won in the first round. Wewould like to congratulate citizens with that victory," saidTer-Petrosyan's spokesman Arman Musinyan.
"There were very serious violations during voting,including ballot-stuffing, kidnapping and the beating of ourrepresentatives at the polling stations," he said.
Land-locked Armenia relies heavily on an alliance withMoscow and remains poor despite swift recent economic growth.
High in the Caucasus mountains, it is squeezed betweenTurkey and Azerbaijan in a region that is emerging as animportant transit route for oil exports from the Caspian Sea toworld markets.
Analysts warn that a still-unresolved conflict withneighbouring Azerbaijan over the separatist territory ofNagorno-Karabakh could flare up again into violence.
Stalled efforts to reach a peace deal are likely to be thebiggest challenge facing the new president.
If the exit poll is matched by official results, Sarksyanwill have enough votes to win outright without a second roundrunoff.
Voting returns were trickling in from polling stationsaround the country of 3.2 million people perched high in theCaucasus mountains.
With an estimated 20 percent of the vote counted, centralelection commission figures gave Sarksyan 193,921 votes, withTer-Petrosyan lagging far behind with 52,548 votes.
Election officials did not say what share of the votes castthis represented or exactly what proportion of the vote hadbeen counted.
FREE AND FAIR?
Sarksyan, after voting in Yerevan, said the priority wasfor Armenia to conduct a free and fair election. His campaignteam said late on Tuesday they were waiting for definitiveofficial results before making a statement.
Previous elections in Armenia have been followed by days ofopposition protests alleging ballot fraud. A new round ofprotests will be a test for stability in a country which, inthe 1990s, was rocked by political convulsions.
Election observers from the Organisation for Security andCooperation in Europe will give their verdict on the vote onWednesday. Their assessment is likely to be a key factor inwhether the opposition protests build momentum.
Kocharyan, 53, is barred by the constitution from serving athird consecutive term. He is expected to remain influentialbut has refused to disclose what role he wants until hisreplacement is inaugurated.
He and Sarksyan, both natives of Nagorno-Karabakh andveterans of its 1990s war with Azerbaijan, are credited withoverseeing a period of double-digit economic growth aftereconomic meltdown under Ter-Petrosyan.
(Writing by Margarita Antidze and Guy Faulconbridge;editing by Andrew Roche)
