Armenialiberty.org reports on the first conclusions from Western observers were released today, by the Council for Europe and the OSCE monitoring commission. They stated that the Armenian elections were “largely democratic” and a “step forward”. They did, however, state that they did fall short of the authorities’ promise that they would be fully democratic, citing the fact that the counting process had problems in about 20% of polling stations. They also witnessed bussing of voters to the polling stations, and some ballot stuffing.

Largely however, I think we could say this is a significant improvement. Serge Sargsyan and his Republican Party won a landslide victory, I guess given the opposition on offer, we couldn’t expect much else.

They are also saying that the faults that were recorded will not affect the outcome of the election. So all in all, I guess we have another five years of the same….?