By Hasmik Mkrtchyan
STEPANAKERT, July 20 (Reuters) - Bako Saakyan, a former security chief, has won 85 percent of the votes in a leadership election in the Azeri breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the central election commission said on Friday.
The data is preliminary and final results will be announced later on Friday.
Karabakh declared independence from Azerbaijan in the 1990s but no country has recognised it. The 46-year-old Saakyan says he wants full independence for the enclave from Azerbaijan, and has vowed to make the sliver of land and its 140,000 people "an example of democratic rule".
"I like Saakyan's programme because he promised to raise pensions and give financial assistance to people," said 66-year-old Shura Sachinyan, an ethnic Armenian refugee.
Muslim Azerbaijan, which lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh after a war against Armenia in the early 1990s, has denounced the election as illegal under international law.
Analysts said the vote could be used by the ethnic Armenian enclave to affirm independence from Azerbaijan.
Karabakh leader Arkady Gukasyan, who is stepping down after holding the post for two five-year terms, has tried to make a parallel with the Serbian province of Kosovo, saying that if Kosovo gets independence then Karabakh should have it too.
The election was largely personality driven. Saakyan's main rival, the 39-year-old Masis Mailyan, who also wants full independence, has won just over 12 percent of the vote, the preliminary data showed.
The commission said turnout had been around 77 percent.
Many of the Azeri minority fled during fighting which killed more than 35,000 people before a ceasefire was brokered in 1994. The region is now populated almost entirely by ethnic Armenians, who enjoy Christian Armenia's backing.
Armenian President Robert Kocharyan is a former leader of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Mailyan said he hoped eventual international recognition of Kosovo, populated mainly by ethnic Albanians, will create an important precedent leading to officially accepted independence for Karabakh.