The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Armenia announced Wednesday that Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan won 52.36 percent of ballots in preliminary results from about 1.64 million voters, which secured his victory in the election.

"According to results collected in 1,891 polling stations out of 1,923 at 9 a.m., Sargsyan won 859,819 votes," CEC President Garegin Azaryan told reporters in a press release.

The CEC said Tuesday night that the voter turnout was 69.26 percent with 1,642,057 voters having cast their ballots in the presidential election.

Sargsyan won 52.36 percent of vote which has broken the 50-percent threshold of votes required by Armenian Electoral Code for the highest post of the nation.

The second and third places were first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan who won 21.3 percent and opposition leader and former parliament speaker Artur Baghdasaryan who won 16.5 percent.

Armenians went to 1,923 polling stations across the mountainous Caucasus nation on Tuesday to vote from nine candidates to replace outgoing President Robert Kocharian, who is currently serving his second and final five-year term.

(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2008)