Following on from his surprise meeting with old foes, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun, RFE/RL reports that the first president, Levon Ter Petrosian, has met with his first prime minister and eventual rival in the 1996 presidential election, Vazgen Manukian. The meeting comes as Armenia well and truly enters the unofficial pre-election campaign period that will surely intensify as the winter sets in.

The two leaders of the 1988 movement for Armenia’s unification with Nagorno-Karabakh jointly headed the country’s first post-Communist government before Manukian fell out with Ter-Petrosian over policy issues to step down as Armenia’s defense minister in 1993.

Their political standoff aggravated after the tightly contested presidential election in 1996 in the wake of which Ter-Petrosian sent tanks to the streets of Yerevan to quell opposition protests against the official vote outcome which showed him narrowly defeating Manukian, the then main opposition candidate. The conduct of the disputed election was then criticized as deeply flawed by Western observers and Manukian still claims to be the rightful winner of the vote.

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However, Manukian said that one of the results of the meeting was that they agreed to cooperate in the future, if necessary, in such matters as sharing information and opinions as “it will be easier to do that having restored personal relations.”

The full post is available on the 2008 Presidential Election Monitor Blog.