Yerevan: Armenians voted yesterday in a presidential election that Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan, given credit for rising living standards, is expected to win.
Opinion polls give Sarksyan, an ally of outgoing President Robert Kocharyan, more than 50 per cent support.
Armenia is squeezed between the more economically powerful Turkey and Azerbaijan, and the region is emerging as a transit route for oil exports from the Caspian Sea to world markets.
Most observers predict that if Sarksyan is elected, his rule will be broadly a continuation of Kocharyan's 10 years in office, which have been marked by economic growth and firm stands towards Azerbaijan and Turkey.
After voting in a public school in Yerevan, Sarksyan avoided any triumphalist comments and said the most important issue was that Armenia was conducting a free and fair election.
Trustworthy
"It's not important whether the election will be held in one or two rounds. The most important point is that our election be trustworthy," Sarksyan said. The top two candidates will contest a run-off if no one tops 50 per cent in the first round vote.
Voters trickled to the polls when they opened at 8am. Polling stations were to close at 8pm in the country of 3.2 million people and first results are expected today.
The opposition says the campaign has been unfair and has vowed to take to the streets if it detects vote-rigging.
Previous elections in Armenia, high in the Caucasus mountains, have been followed by mass opposition protests alleging ballot fraud.
The rest of the field is led by former speaker of parliament Artur Baghdasaryan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan, a former president who was forced to resign in 1998 and is now seeking a comeback.
There is friction between Armenia and the Azeris over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, now controlled by Armenians. Energy flows could be threatened, analysts say, if this unresolved conflict flares up again into fighting.
No third term
A dispute between Armenia and another neighbour, Turkey, complicates Ankara's relations with the West.
Kocharyan, 53, is barred by the constitution from serving a third consecutive term. He is expected to remain influential but has refused to disclose what role he wants until his replacement is inaugurated.
"I think no one has any doubt about whom I would be voting for. I voted for stability and prosperity in Armenia," Kocharyan said, after casting a ballot at the same polling station where his prime minister had voted an hour later.
In a recent local TV interview he said he would be voting for Sarksyan.
Engineer Mesrop Yegizaryan, 48, cast his ballot for Ter-Petrosyan at public school number 24.
"I'm voting for him because he made a lot of mistakes when he used to be president. But he's changed a lot since then and I'd like to support him to give him a chance to rebuild what he has destroyed," he said.
More than 300 foreign observers will monitor voting.
Final results must be released within seven days of the vote.
Factbox
Landlocked country
- --POPULATION: 3.22 million as of January 2007.
- --ETHNIC COMPOSITION: More than 97 per cent of the population is Armenian. There are small minorities of Russians, Kurds and Greeks.
- --GEOGRAPHY: Landlocked, bordering Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Turkey, and with a total area of 29,800 square km.
- --CAPITAL: Yerevan.
- --LANGUAGE: Armenian is the official language. Russian and Kurdish are also spoken.
- --RELIGION: Most Armenians belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, an ancient independent branch of Christianity.
- --HISTORY: Armenia says 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were killed in what it says was a genocide by Ottoman Turks in 1915-1923. Turkey denies the killings were a genocide. It says the Armenians were victims of a partisan war that also claimed many Muslim Turkish lives.
- --INDEPENDENCE: An independent Armenian state existed from 1918 to 1921 but was swallowed up by Communist Russia in 1921, later becoming a republic of the Soviet Union until independence in 1991.
