Armenia's capital Yerevan holds a fiercely contested election for mayor on Sunday, a key test of government popularity as it struggles with an economic downturn and rapprochement with neighbouring Turkey.
The opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) is fielding party leader and former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, in the hope victory in Yerevan will provide the basis for a national challenge to the authority of President Serzh Sarksyan.
Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia's first president after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, lost to Sarksyan in presidential elections in February 2008. Ter-Petrosyan's supporters cried foul and 10 people including two policemen died in clashes.
Sarksyan's Republican Party is backing incumbent mayor Gagik Beglaryan. Pollsters predict a close race, but say Beglaryan is favourite to win.
The results of elections are routinely challenged by the losing side. The winner will take charge of a region comprising 1.1 million of Armenia's 3.2 million people. With the stakes so high, there is a risk of more street protests.
Ter-Petrosyan is running under the slogan: "Let's change Armenia, starting with Yerevan".
"On May 31, we will celebrate the first stage of our great victory," Grigor Harutiunyan, one of the ANC's candidates for the Yerevan city council, told a rally on Wednesday.
Armenia's leaders say they want to build a European-style democracy and have won some Western praise. But opponents say the country is ruled by a clique who refuse to give rivals access to political power or economic influence.
The opposition is hoping to capitalise on discontent over the state of the economy, which has nose-dived with the global economic crisis and the impact of economic and strategic ally Russia sliding into recession.
GDP in the landlocked country is forecast to contract by 5.8 percent in 2009 and prices have crept up since the Central Bank floated the Dram currency in March.
Sarksyan has also come under fire for a roadmap announced in April to normalise ties with Turkey after a century of hostility over the World War One killings.
Many Armenians welcomed the deal in the belief Turkey would open their border, which Ankara closed in 1993 over Armenia's backing for ethnic Armenian separatists fighting a war in Azerbaijan's breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
But Turkish leaders have since said the frontier will remain shut until Armenia makes concessions on Nagorno-Karabakh. The opposition charges that Sarksyan was out-manoeuvred.
Just over 770,000 people are eligible to vote. Official results are expected on Monday.
