For more than two decades, such citizens have been legally allowed to vote only in polling stations inside Armenia. A bill which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party plans to push through the outgoing Armenian parliament later this month stipulates that they will lose voting rights if they have stayed in the country for less than six months during a year preceding elections. This restriction will not apply to Armenian diplomats and students enrolled in foreign universities.
One of the co-sponsors of the bill, Alkhas Ghazarian, on Wednesday linked it to the June 7 parliamentary elections. But she refused to elaborate.
In the weeks leading up to the elections, Pashinian’s aides and political allies claimed that Armenian expats in Russia are paid to travel to Armenia and vote for the main opposition Strong Armenia alliance led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian. They did not offer any proof of the allegations.
They openly warned the expats and especially men not to come to their home country to cast ballots. A deputy chief of Pashinian’s staff and a news website controlled by Civil Contract said that the men would be called up for short military service on their arrival. In a clearly related development, military police officers were deployed at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport on the eve of the polls.
Hovhannes Sahakian, an Armenian living in Russia, speaks to Shant TV at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport, June 7, 2026.
Ruling party figures have not said how many expats entered Armenia from Russia in May and early June and whether their number was up from the year-earlier period. Ghazarian pointed to the case of one such expat, Hovannes Sahakian, who got himself into trouble after flying to Armenia together with his wife and children on election day.
Sahakian told a local TV channel at Zvartnots that they will fly back to Russia hours after casting ballots because they fear post-election unrest. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested and charged with failure to alert relevant authorities about a planned “usurpation of power” in Armenia. Sahakian, who was later freed but banned from leaving the country, denies the accusation decried by Armenian opposition figures.
In March, the Armenian authorities claimed that a foreign, presumably Russian, intelligence service is pressuring wealthy Armenians doing business abroad to support opposition forces challenging Pashinian. The Investigative Committee opened a relevant criminal case at the time. Nobody is known to have been indicted in that probe.
The Civil Contract bill has led to speculation that Pashinian’s party may be gearing up for fresh elections because of its failure to secure a two-thirds majority in the parliament, which is necessary for enacting a new Armenian constitution demanded by Azerbaijan. Ghazarian dismissed the speculation.
