Protests in Armenia led by Raffi Hovannisian against re-elected president

Thousands of people have protested in Armenia's capital Yerevan against the re-election of President Serzh Sarksyan, asserting that an opposition party leader was the real winner. International monitors said Monday's vote was an improvement on recent elections in Armenia but there was little competition as some of Sarksyan's most prominent rivals did not run, saying the result was likely to be skewed to deliver him victory.
The rally in Yerevan's Freedom Square was peaceful and there were no protests in other cities in the ex-Soviet republic. But analysts are concerned about instability in a region that is a key transit route for Caspian gas and oil deliveries to Europe.
Armenia, a South Caucasus country of 3.2 million that has a collective security deal with Russia, is also locked in dispute with neighbour Azerbaijan over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
About 30,000 people were killed in a 1990s war between the neighbours over Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian-majority enclave inside Azerbaijan, which Armenian-backed rebels wrested from Azeri troops.