Kokoity declared the election in the South Ossetia fair amidst protests by the opposition

The elections held in South Ossetia were fair and transparent. South Ossetia has passed a test for mature democracy, declared the President of South Ossetia Edward Kokoity following the announcement of the parliamentary election results by Bella Pliyeva, Head of the Central Electoral Committee.

Kokoity said that he was prepared for positive work with the Parliament. "I would like to point out that I am ready to hand over large powers to the Parliament of the RSO including those for forming the Governemnt of the RSO jointly with the President of the Republic, which has not been previously the case," stated Edward Kokoity.

According to Bella Pliyeva, Head of the Central Electoral Committee of South Ossetia, the preliminary results indicate that the turnout in the elections to the Parliament of South Ossetia was 81.93%.

The preliminary distribution of the deputee's mandates is as follows: Communist Party: 8 deputy's mandates; Unity Party: 17 deputy's mandates; People's Party: 9 deputy's mandates; Fydybasta Party failed to pass the 7 per cent barrier.

In his interview with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, Vyacheslav Gobozov, leader of the Fydybasta Party described the election results as "strange." "In Northern Ossetia, our observers were not allowed to enter the polling station for more than one and a half hour under the pretext that some numbers had been mismatched," said Gobozov.

The ballot boxes were sealed in the absence of the party's observers, "no one knows whether they were empty or not," said Gobozov.

According to Roland Kelekhsayev, leader of the People's Party that was not admitted to the elections, most of the violations took place in Northern Ossetia rather than South Ossetia.

"Out of four parties taking part in the elections, three parties had their candidates included in the Kokoity election lists. Some people coming to the polling station did not reside in South Ossetia and were not the Southern Ossetian citizens. They arrived in buses. They even borrowed passports from one another and voted using the same documents," said Kelekhsayev in his interview with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"There were no observers at any polling station in Northern Ossetia. They were driven as a group to South Ossetia to show how the people vote over there while the real violations took place in Northern Ossetia," stated Kelekhsayevv.

The international observers present at various polling stations gave brief press-conferences following the closure of the stations noting a high level of the organisation of the lections with almost no voting irregularities.

Earlier Albert Djussov, one of the opposition leaders, informing of mass violations accused law enforcement officers of forcing the people to go to polling stations.