Armenians began voting today in parliamentary elections seen as a test of democracy in the Caucasian country and a dress rehearsal for a presidential contest next year.
The Republican party led by Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan - a trusted lieutenant and favoured successor to President Robert Kocharyan - is expected to easily defeat the opposition when 2.3 million voters in ex-Soviet state go to the polls.
"A candidate from a party which gets a majority of votes will have a good starting position for the presidential race," Mr Kocharyan (52) said after voting at a crowded polling station in the capital Yerevan.
Mr Kocharyan, who is to step down early next year when his second term ends, said the opposition should also be represented in the new parliament but the future president needed a significant power base to endorse his authority.
"If the president has solid support in the new parliament he will become a serious president, if not - he will just be a figurehead," Mr Kocharyan said.
Western monitors said Armenia's last parliamentary poll fell short of democratic standards, and the opposition has threatened street protests if there is ballot fraud today.
Armenia nestles high in the mountains of a region that is emerging as a vital transit route for oil exports from the Caspian Sea to energy-hungry world markets, though it has no pipelines of its own.
Armenia fought a still-unresolved war with neighbouring Azerbaijan in the early 1990s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory populated by ethnic Armenians which broke away from mainly Muslim Azerbaijan at the end of Soviet rule.
Voters are expected to credit Mr Kocharyan's allies for years of strong economic growth.
The opposition is divided and its members say they are not given fair treatment on tightly controlled television.
Opinion polls suggest the chief challenger to the Republican party is the pro-presidential Prosperous Armenia, set up by wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukyan.
Prime minister Sarksyan, also 52, appeared confident of his Republican Party's victory and said the election will be "the best in Armenia's history", he told reporters.
The election commission expects to announce preliminary results tomorrow but in previous elections the ruling party has claimed victory shortly after voting ended. Polling stations were due to close at 4pm.