Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed victory after preliminary results from the country’s election commission showed his Civil Contract party leading the June 7 parliamentary election with about 49.8% of the vote, ahead of the pro-Russian Strong Armenia bloc led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his Civil Contract party had won Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary election after the Central Electoral Commission released preliminary results showing the governing party in first place with about 49.8% of the vote. The Moscow-friendly Strong Armenia bloc placed second with about 23.3%, according to the same preliminary count. The bloc is led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who has been described in multiple reports as a pro-Russian figure and, in recent coverage, as being under house arrest on allegations connected to calls to overthrow the government. The outcome was widely viewed as a test of Armenia’s foreign-policy course following a sharp deterioration in relations with Russia. That strain deepened after Azerbaijan’s September 2023 operation in Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent flight of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to Armenia, a displacement Armenian authorities and international reporting have documented. Pashinyan has said Armenia has “frozen” its participation in the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), arguing that the alliance failed to meet its security obligations to Armenia. Separately, Armenia has in recent months expanded cooperation with Western partners and backed a U.S.-supported regional transit project commonly referred to as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), which has been described in international reporting as a proposed corridor intended to improve trade links and diversify routes in the South Caucasus. Pashinyan has campaigned in recent years on a “Real Armenia” agenda, portraying it as a push for greater sovereignty and independence in a region long shaped by Russia’s influence. Preliminary results indicate Civil Contract remains the largest force in parliament, though those figures do not suggest it would automatically hold the two-thirds threshold associated with constitutional changes under Armenia’s political system.