RFE/RL reports that the Armenian Foreign Minister, Vartan Oskanian, has warned of possible unrest following the 19 February presidential election in Armenia. Probably he has every reason to. During the May 2007 parliamentary election in Armenia, for example, the radical opposition which now supports the candidacy of former president Levon Ter Petrosian showed no sign of campaigning for the vote and instead used its rallies to prepare an albeit small number of supporters for a “democratic revolution” which never materialized.

And while the prime minister has been campaigning, the chosen method of securing votes has been through vote bribes and the questionable counting of ballots once the polls have closed. For sure, the two sides have polarized society although there is a far larger mass of people in between who would rather have stability than unrest. That’s probably one reason why May’s parliamentary election met with the approval of the international community and why opposition protests fizzled out in a matter of hours rather than days.

The situation is somewhat different for next month’s presidential election, however. Few would doubt that the grouping of various minor and even insignificant political parties behind Ter Petrosian have their last chance to make a comeback after a disastrous showing in last year’s parliamentary vote. None of them managed to secure enough votes to enter parliament. Instead, a new opposition in the form of Orinats Yerkir and Heritage was formed in the National Assembly.

Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian emphasized on Wednesday the significance of next month’s presidential election for Armenia’s international reputation and expressed concern in that regard about the possibility of post-election unrest in the country.

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“I think these elections will have an even bigger impact,” Oskanian said of the presidential vote scheduled for February 19. “If we conduct them well, our positions will definitely strengthen in the international arena.”

“[…] if we hold bad elections, I can say for certain that consequences will be negative and that Armenia will lose the reputation it acquired in the past year. That will have a negative impact on our foreign policy,” he added in a warning clearly addressed to his own government.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.