Armenia hopes for calm election, democratic outcome

Armenia holds a parliamentary election on Sunday which leaders hope will reinforce stability and be free of the fraud and violence that marred the South Caucasus country's last national polls.    
The biggest parties in the coalition government, President Serzh Sarksyan's Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia led by businessman Gagik Tsarukyan, are expected to remain the strongest in the former Soviet republic of 3.3 million.    

Sarksyan promised a fair election that would signal a break from the past in a country that hankers for stability to boost the economy, devastated by a war with neighbouring Azerbaijan in the 1990s and then hit by the 2008-09 global financial crisis.    

"We have managed to turn the political fight into a fair competition," he told supporters during campaigning in the mountainous and landlocked country which has found prosperity elusive since winning independence from the Soviet Union.    

The poll will be monitored by more than 300 international observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which said the last parliamentary election in 2007 fell short of international standards.    

A blast at a campaign rally injured about 150 people on Friday, raising fears of a repeat of the violence that killed 10 people after the 2008 presidential election, but emergency officials said it was caused by gas-filled balloons exploding.    

The violence in 2008, when eight opposition protesters and two police were killed in clashes, dealt a severe blow to the country's democratic credentials.    

Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Centre in Yerevan, said Sunday's election was a test of the credibility of the president and government and "an opportunity for the Armenian president to move beyond the legacy of March 2008 once and for all."  

Reuters