Although Internet penetration in Armenia is quite low compared to the West, more and more domain names are being registered and many opposition media outlets now depend on an online presence to get their message out. In recent years international donors have even funded government web sites in the hope of increasing transparency and promoting the rule of law.

Last year’s parliamentary election was also quite notable in that many political parties started to use the Internet to appeal to voters and, as The Armenian Observer notes, that tendency looks set to continue for next month’s presidential election in Armenia.

Vigorous politicisation of the Armenian section of Internet is observed as the February 19 Presidential elections draw near. A number of official websites endorsing different candidates have been launched. Already there are websites for Levon Ter-Petrossian, Vazgen Manukyan, Vahan Hovhannisyan and Artur Baghdasaryan. Sections related to the elections have appeared in the websites of Republican Party of Armenia, Prosperous Armenia/ Bargavach Hayastan and United Liberal National Party/MIAK parties.

Passport and invitations department at RA police has presented the list of Armenian voters based on polling stations to the Central Electoral Commission, which has been placed in the Central Electoral Commission’s website, and as was the case with the previous elections, every Internet connected voter may check their names in the list and find out which polling station they will be voting, and where that particular station is located. By the way, 2 311 917 voters were registered this time, which is 5 983 less then the previous - May 12, 2007 Parliamentary elections.

A range of information websites dedicated to the upcoming elections have been launched, including the http://elections.a1plus.am/ of A1plus, http://www.echannel.am - by Internews Armenia and http://www.elections2008.am - by MediaMax News Agency.

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