(Updates with polls closing, quote from opposition leader)

By Hasmik Mkrtchyan

YEREVAN, May 12 (Reuters) - Armenians voted on Saturday in a parliamentary election regarded 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 win. It held a majority in parliament with its allies before the election.

"A candidate from a party which gets a majority will have a good starting position for the presidential race," Kocharyan, 52, told reporters after voting with his wife Bella in central Yerevan.

Polling stations closed at 1500 GMT. The Central Election Commission said turnout was more than 55 percent of the 2.3 million eligible voters in the ex-Soviet state.

The election commission expects to announce preliminary results on Sunday. In previous elections the ruling party has claimed victory shortly after voting ended.

Voters are expected to credit 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.

Kocharyan is to step down early next year when his second five-year term ends. He said 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," Kocharyan said.

Western monitors said Armenia's last parliamentary poll in 2003 fell short of democratic standards and the opposition has threatened street protests if there is ballot fraud on Saturday.

NOT IN A HURRY

Some opposition parties have complained of voting violations. The election commission said it received only a few reports, some of them groundless. The monitoring group from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is due to hold a news conference on Sunday at 0930 GMT.

Armenia, bordered by Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia and Iran, relies heavily on financial and moral support from a huge diaspora in Russia, western Europe and the United States.

The country 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, although 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.

Kocharyan ran Nagorno-Karabakh before becoming Armenian president in 1998. Sarksyan, who was appointed prime minister in early April after the death of the previous incumbent, also held a top post in Karabakh.

Opinion polls suggest the chief challenger to the Republican party is the pro-presidential Prosperous Armenia, set up by wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukyan. (Additional reporting by Margarita Antidze)

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