Date first published: 09/06/2026
Key sectors: all
Key risks: political stability; policy uncertainty; governance
Risk development
On 7 June Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won parliamentary elections with 49.9 per cent of the vote, securing a governing majority of 64 of 105 seats. The Russia-friendly opposition alliance Strong Armenia, led by billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, came second with 23.3 per cent, followed by former president Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance with 9.9 per cent. It was the first such vote since Azerbaijan’s September 2023 takeover of the Yerevan-backed breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region and the subsequent exodus of its ethnic Armenian population. The campaign was marked by domestic criticism of Pashinyan’s peace drive with Baku and tensions with Moscow over his pro-Western alignment.
Why it matters
The outcome preserves the administration best positioned to conclude a peace settlement with Azerbaijan, which remains a defining political and strategic issue facing Armenia. On 8 August 2025 Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a joint declaration in Washington pledging to end their decades-long conflict, granting the United States (US) exclusive rights to develop a trade corridor through Armenian territory, rebranded as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), linking Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave. The declaration advanced protracted talks but left major points unresolved, including Baku’s demand that Yerevan amend its constitution to remove references to Nagorno-Karabakh. That step requires a referendum, which only a Pashinyan government with parliamentary control can attempt. A win for the more hardline opposition would have stalled ratification indefinitely.
Pashinyan’s resilience has rested on the absence of a credible alternative. The main opposition figures are tied to the elite that governed before the Pashinyan-led 2018 revolution and whose tenure is widely associated with entrenched corruption, and Pashinyan’s anti-graft and reform agenda continues to draw support despite the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh. Overt Russian pressure did not translate into an opposition majority.
Background
In the weeks before the vote, Moscow escalated pressure on Pashinyan. On 27 May Russian officials warned they would suspend discounted supplies of natural gas, petroleum products and rough diamonds if Yerevan pursued EU accession. Armenia has relied on Russia for 82 per cent of its gas imports in 2025 and hosts Russian military bases. On 29 May a joint statement from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan stated that Armenian EU preparations would endanger the economic security of remaining Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) members and demanded that Yerevan hold a referendum on whether to join the EU or stay in the bloc. Washington, by contrast, endorsed Pashinyan’s bid amid its emergence as the lead broker in the South Caucasus through TRIPP, a role Moscow has ceded since declining to intervene during Baku’s 2023 operation.
The pro-Western versus pro-Russian framing should be treated with caution. Armenia, which remains in the EAEU and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), has neither applied for EU membership nor announced plans to leave the bloc, and Pashinyan has described his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin as close. A government that projects a European image while preserving pragmatic ties with Moscow may suit Moscow better than an openly pro-Russian one that would attract greater Western hostility, particularly as Moscow depends on vital sanctions-evasion networks through Armenia to supply its defence industry with dual-use goods.
Risk outlook
In the short term, the result stabilises policy direction. Pashinyan’s majority allows him to continue normalisation with Baku and to prepare the constitutional referendum that Azerbaijan has set as a condition for a final treaty. A referendum carries domestic political risk, as Pashinyan must persuade a public still processing the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh to endorse concessions, and a defeat would reopen questions over his mandate. Opposition legal challenges and renewed civil unrest cannot be ruled out, and Russian leverage over gas and the EAEU remains a tool Moscow can apply selectively.