Even as international observers on May 13 hailed the conduct of Armenia's parliamentary vote, opposition members gathered in downtown Yerevan to protest against what they allege was widespread electoral fraud. The group - made up of the hardline Republic Party, New Times Party, Impeachment bloc and the more centrist People's Party of Armenia - has vowed to continue their rallies until votes are recounted "and the president resigns."

"What we had yesterday was not an election, but a state crime and the only way to fight against that crime is impeachment [of President Robert Kocharian]," Impeachment bloc leader Nikol Pashinian said in an appeal to voters. According to the latest preliminary results from the Central Election Commission, the Impeachment bloc failed to clear the 5 percent of the vote barrier to take seats in parliament.

Those preliminary results indicate that Armenia's most radical opposition parties have already lost the election. In the new parliament there will be only two opposition parties - US-born former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian's Heritage Party and the Country of Law Party headed by former Parliamentary Speaker Artur Baghdasarian. The two parties, however, will have only approximately 10 seats, compared with the 22 seats won by nine opposition parties in the 2003 elections. (The Country of Law announced late on May 13 that it will petition the courts to reexamine its election results and will not accept the announced results as final. )

Attendance at the rally was far lower than at a May 9 pre-election demonstration that resulted in a clash with police. Roughly only a few hundred protestors - mostly middle-aged or elderly men, many of them onlookers munching sunflower seeds -- braved occasional rain to join the protest outside of Yerevan's opera house.

Reasons offered by protest participants for the low turnout varied. One woman claimed that roads leading into Yerevan from the town of Sevan in northern Armenia and from Etchmiadzin, seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church, had been closed. (Police said that they had no information about the closure of the road from Etchmiadzin but a Yerevan bus terminal representative confirmed that no buses had arrived from Sevan for the two hours preceding the rally's start.)

Other protestors claimed that the brawl with police that marked a May 9 opposition rally had frightened many away.

Still others point to the May 8 arrest of former Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanian, leader of a pro-opposition civil disobedience movement, as a suspect in an alleged money laundering scheme. Arzumanian was sentenced to a two-month detention on May 10.

Despite those concerns, the rally had one notable new addition -- People's Party of Armenia leader Stepan Demirchian, who lost to President Kocharian in the 2003 presidential election.

Although Demirchian's party was also holding another rally not far away, the party leader decided to join the Liberty Square rally to protest the elections as "an insult to the national dignity," he told EurasiaNet.

The People's Party of Armenia won a total of 23,629 votes, according to preliminary figures - a count, which Demirchian believes is far less than the real figure.

Not all analysts agree. Independent political analyst David Petrosian argues that the results show a changing situation for the People's Party of Armenia. Nostalgia for Demirchian's father, Karen Demirchian, a well-respected leader of Armenia during the late Soviet period, has subsided, he noted.

"Demirchian's father left him a rich political heritage. But he lost it because of his inaction during the last four years," commented Petrosian. "He worked neither with the people nor even with the various structures of his party in the regions."

Before the election, sociologist Aharon Adibekian noted that both Demirchian and former popular opposition leader Artashes Geghamian, head of the National Unity Party, which also failed to clear the 5 percent barrier to enter parliament, had lost support because of campaigns that missed the mark with voters.

"It's wrong to build a campaign based on negativity," he said. "People are tired of hearing about bad news Everybody knows things are bad, but they need to see the way out, not to hear constant complaints."

To some extent, Demirchian accepts that his party's popularity may have slipped, but, like other opposition leaders, puts much of the blame for his party's poor showing on widespread election bribery.

Almost all opposition party and one pro-government party (the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) headquarters have registered cases of election bribery.

EurasiaNet also witnessed a similar case in the Shengavit district of Yerevan, where a group of men sitting near a polling station were apparently making a list of voters who came up to the men with their passports. Approached by a EurasiaNet reporter and photographer, one of the men grabbed the list and ran off, dispersing threats en route.

Near a polling station in Yerevan's Arabkir district, a group of people was noticed leaving a shoemaker's booth with money in their passports. One woman leaving the booth told EurasiaNet that "all" of her neighbors and she had received 5,000 drams (about $9) in the booth for votes for the Republican Party.

Republican Party spokesperson Eduard Sharmazanov qualified the report as "simply another case of propaganda against the Republicans."

Opposition Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) Party Deputy Chairperson Heghine Bisharian echoes such reports, however.

"All these things are done outside the precinct: there was a person by each building distributing money, because [they knew] the observers would not go to the yards," she said.

Bisharian alleges that the distribution of color pens - primarily green and red - by some parties for marking ballots was intended to show whom had been paid for their votes. No independent verification of these reports has been made.

But for some opposition supporters, no independent verification is necessary. The claims simply reinforce their worst suspicions about the government.

"They have become professionals in falsifying elections. They are professionals!" raged teacher Siranush Gevorgian. " Let them beat us and break us, they won't get our conscience, they won't buy us!"

Editor's Note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for the independent online ArmeniaNow weekly.