“A curious election took place recently in the Caucasus. It attracted very little notice but deserved more. In the tiny, unrecognized territory of Nagorny Karabakh—entirely Armenian but still regarded by the world as de jure part of Azerbaijan—an opposition candidate for president did extremely well,” says an article by author Thomas de Waal, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, posted on The National Interest.

“With no support from any political party and in a place with a strong tradition of government control, Vitaly Balasanian collected 32 percent of the vote against the incumbent Bako Saakian, who was reelected president. According to local statistics, about seventy thousand people voted. Balasanian’s was an impressive performance by any standards. In most of the former Soviet Union, opposition candidates do not get a third of the vote,” the article reads.

The result was even more striking in the limited conditions of Nagorny Karabakh. In Armenia’s last presidential election, former president and head of the opposition Levon Ter-Petrosian was awarded 21 percent of the vote.

“Balasanian’s patriotic credentials were unimpeachable,” and he “picked up his strongest support in three rural regions, Askeran, Martakert and Martuni, where socio-economic problems are greatest.”

The Karabakh election conforms to a curious trend whereby some of the most competitive elections in the post-Soviet space are in unrecognized or partially recognized territories - Transnistria, Abkhazia South Ossetia.

The author’s explanation is that “paradoxically, because statehood is weaker in these territories, ordinary members of society are more self-reliant and less susceptible to pressure.”