Meanwhile, a senior lawmaker representing the governing coalition, Armen Rustamian, warned that Armenia could face the kind of international sanctions that have just been imposed on Belarus if its next parliamentary and presidential elections are also deemed undemocratic by the West. “There can be no exceptions on this issue as democracy is based on free and fair elections,” Rustamian told RFE/RL. “We must therefore hold the elections of 2007 and 2008 in line with those standards.”

The RFE/RL Press Review also quotes commentary from Armenia’s newspapers on the revelations. The most telling is probably an editorial in the albeit pro-opposition Aravot newspaper.

“Aravot” comments on allegations by Spartak Yeghiazarian, chairman of the electoral commission in a big Armenian village, that the 2003 presidential election was rigged on an enormous scale. “In another country or circumstances that would be deemed sensational,” editorializes the paper. “But in this case, that is not a sensation because everybody in Armenia, from Robert Kocharian to street cleaners, has no doubts that this is how it all happened. Not only in that but also every other precinct. If our prosecution is smart enough it will report to the Council of Europe that it has at last punished election riggers.”