Armenia’s 2026 parliamentary elections: a vote not only about Russia and the European Union

Yerevan on April 24th, 2026. Photo: Aleksej Tilman / Meridiano13

Armenia’s recent media spotlight has created new interest in the country’s upcoming elections. While relations with the EU and Russia remain key issues, it is also important to appreciate the internal dynamics of the country going into this vote.

Aleksej Tilman

New Eastern Europe

With less than a month remaining before Armenia’s 2026 parliamentary elections, the Central Electoral Commission officially confirmed the 19 political forces that will compete for seats in the National Assembly on June 7th.

In recent weeks, we visited the country that has recently been an unusual center of international media attention. On May 4th and 5th, Yerevan hosted the eighth summit of the European Political Community (EPC) and the Armenia-EU summit. These events brought together 48 countries and numerous heads of government, including Giorgia Meloni, Emmanuel Macron, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. For Armenia’s current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who is seeking a third term, this constituted an important PR success on the eve of an election campaign that only formally began on May 8th.

Indeed, Armenia’s geopolitical orientation is one of the key issues in the political debate ahead of the vote. It is worth examining how the South Caucasus country is approaching this important date.

The geopolitical upheavals of the last legislature

During the current legislature, which began in 2021, a series of external shocks has heavily influenced Armenia’s domestic politics. Above all, this is made clear by two Azerbaijani military offensives in 2022 and 2023. The first resulted in the still ongoing occupation of territories internationally recognized as part of Armenia. The second led to Azerbaijan’s complete recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh and the exodus of its more than 100,000 Armenian inhabitants.

The list of traumas linked to these events is long: military and civilian casualties, the nine-month Azerbaijani blockade that drove the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh into starvation before their forced displacement, and the gradual destruction of the region’s Armenian architectural heritage. All of this adds to the suffering caused by the 2020 war.

Those shocks marked a turning point in Armenia’s international positioning. The government began questioning the role of Russia, which had acted as the country’s security guarantor since its independence in 1991. Moscow’s inaction during the Azerbaijani offensives of recent years led Yerevan to suspend Armenia’s participation in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, a Russian-led military alliance) in 2023. Armenia nevertheless remains a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and continues to host Russian troops on its territory, albeit in smaller numbers than in the past. As we shall see, economic ties between the two countries also remain in place.

At the same time, Pashinyan’s government has pushed – at the cost of major negotiating concessions that the prime minister has framed within the ideology of “Real Armenia” – for a normalization in relations with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Turkey. This is after more than thirty years of wars and closed borders.

Significant progress has been made with Armenia’s western neighbour, although Ankara continues to condition further steps on the completion of the peace process between Yerevan and its ally Baku. On this front, major developments have indeed occurred. On August 8th 2025, Armenia and Azerbaijan, with mediation provided by the United States, signed a historic joint declaration in Washington and finalized the text of a peace agreement. The signing and implementation of the document will still take time but relations between the two countries now appear significantly improved. This is demonstrated by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s video message remarks during the Yerevan summit on May 4th.

The peace process has also sparked interest in Armenia among actors that until now had played only a marginal role: the United States and the European Union. The first helped break the deadlock in Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations by committing investments to the construction of the so-called TRIPP (Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity). This infrastructure project in southern Armenia aims to connect the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan with the rest of Azerbaijan’s territory. Brussels, meanwhile, deployed EUMA in 2022. This civilian monitoring mission is based on the Armenian side of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

The May summits also highlighted that the rapprochement between Armenia and the European Union extends beyond security issues. Since 2023, Pashinyan’s government has identified EU membership as a foreign policy objective, finding a degree of openness in Brussels. Negotiations on visa liberalization for Armenian citizens traveling to the EU also reflect a level of cooperation that, despite all its limitations, would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago.

These changes have encountered both internal and external resistance. Domestically, a fierce confrontation has been underway since 2020 between the government and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The group’s leader, Karekin II, has called on Pashinyan to resign over the defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh, while the prime minister accuses the religious institution of being a pro-Russian force and even attempting to stage a coup. Externally, resistance has come from Russia itself. At the beginning of April, President Vladimir Putin threatened Armenia with economic retaliation should it continue to forge closer relations with the European Union. These threats have been reiterated after the EPC summit.

The main political forces and key issues of the election campaign

Reading what has been described so far, one might think that security would dominate the election campaign. In reality, the picture is more complex. The journalist Arsen Kharatyan explained to Meridiano 13 that the narrative has changed compared to the 2021 vote, when security was, indeed, at the centre of debate: “If you look at the statements of the various political groups and the slogans of the election campaign, everything now revolves around peace. The ruling party was the first to raise the issue. Their main theme is peace. Others simply use different terms associated with peace: “dignified peace”, “stable peace”, “guaranteed peace”.”

Surveys show that the electorate is increasinglyconcerned with socio-economic issues, and parties are aware of these priorities. According to the commentator Arhsaluys Mghdesyan, “after the 2025 agreement with Azerbaijan, at least for the moment, security issues have somewhat moved into the background in the eyes of society. People no longer feel the same level of anxiety about this issue that existed until a year or two ago. When these fears decrease, socio-economic issues come to the fore.”

Indeed, the ruling party “Civil Contract” frames its narrative around precisely these two dimensions: it presents itself as a “party of peace” that is facing “a three-headed war party”. At the same time, the government has invested in costly social programmes, such as pension increases and free healthcare. Polls currently place “Civil Contract” as the frontrunner in the June elections, though the projections remain uncertain due to the high number of undecided voters and refusals to respond.

The “heads” referred to by the prime minister are the three main opposition political forces. These parties are united by their open pro-Russian leanings and criticism of the government for its perceived leniency in negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkey. However, these groups remain divided by internal rivalries.

According to almost all polls, the strongest among them is “Strong Armenia”, a party founded in 2024 by the Armenian-Russian-Cypriot billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, owner of the Tashir Group (a conglomerate active in sectors ranging from energy to hospitality). Karapetyan, however, is in a peculiar situation: by law, he cannot become prime minister as he holds more than one citizenship. Moreover, he has been under house arrest since December on charges of supporting the Church in an alleged attempted coup and for various financial crimes.

The rhetoric of “Strong Armenia” reflects the same pattern mentioned for the ruling party. On the one hand, attention is paid to social issues with a promise to revive the country’s economy in five steps. On the other, there have been harsh attacks on Pashinyan, who is accused of serving Azerbaijani interests. There is an overall pledge for a tougher approach to negotiations with Baku.

In third place in the polls is the “Armenia” alliance, which includes the historic Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun). The bloc is chaired by former president (1998–2008) Robert Kocharyan. It shares the anti-Pashinyan rhetoric of Karapetyan’s party, with the prime minister accused of having turned the country into an Azerbaijani vilayet (province).

“Armenia” is unlikely to reach the eight per cent electoral threshold required by law for alliances. However, if it were to finish as the third-largest force at the polls, it could still enter parliament provided no other party surpasses four per cent (the law requires that at least three political forces share the seats).

 

Finally, the third “head” is “Prosperous Armenia”, which was founded in 2004 by the businessman Gagik Tsarukyan and is now far from the peaks of the popularity it enjoyed in previous years. Polls show it competing for the same electorate as “Armenia” for third place, although, as a party rather than an alliance, its electoral threshold is four per cent.

Looking at the political landscape, it is worth noting that, except for Karapetyan and a few minor parties, little has changed compared to the past. According to Kharatyan, this is due to some distinctive features of the country: “Armenia is the only country in the former Soviet space where all former leaders are still alive, free, and actively involved in politics. On the one hand, their presence – along with their resources, knowledge, and experience – carries significant weight, making it very difficult for new political groups to emerge (although some have and it remains to be seen how successful they will be). On the other hand,” continues Karatyan, “we continue to see the same repetitive pattern: a ruling party that has the resources, capacity, and power, and the others that do not.”

This electoral cycle, he concludes, presents one novelty: “There is now a clearly and openly pro-Russian group that does not hide it at all, along with an oligarch [Karapetyan, Ed.]. We have never had, so to speak, an oligarch linked to Russia participating in elections.” Moreover, “the political agenda is very closely tied to personalities. For example, the ruling party and the current prime minister are clearly the favourites of the West. It is quite obvious. And it is very difficult to occupy that political space: no opposition force manages to replace it. So the competition is more about who will become Russia’s main favourite.”

A campaign underway and the Russian factor

At the beginning of this article, we wrote that the election campaign formally started on May 8th. This means that in the 28 days preceding the vote, all parties are subject to an equal spending cap set at 800 million drams (around 1.8 million euros). However, as the journalist Maria Titizian noted on “EVN Report”, all campaign spending before this date is not accounted for.

During our visit to the country in the last days of April, it was already evident that the campaign had been underway for some time. Posters for “Strong Armenia” and “Armenia” were already ubiquitous in Yerevan and other cities, and public events were similarly being used as vehicles for electoral propaganda. On the opposition side, the traditional torchlight procession on April 23rd commemorating the Armenian Genocide was an opportunity to attack the government (which in turn used it to criticize “warmongering” forces). The executive, for its part, organized a free concert on April 25th with international stars in Yerevan’s Republic Square titled “Voices of Peace”, which is fully aligned with its electoral narrative.

To conclude, in an election that will still carry strong geopolitical significance and in which the European Union has expressed explicit support for Pashinyan, the Russian factor cannot be overlooked. The recent case of Moldova suggests that Moscow could attempt to interfere in the Armenian vote through disinformation campaigns and by mobilizing the two-million-strong Armenian diaspora in Russia.

The media offensive has already begun, and Brussels has sent experts to support Yerevan in countering foreign interference. However, on the second front, compared to Moldova, the logistical challenge would be significant, since the Armenian constitution does not provide for voting from abroad.

Finally, the dichotomous rhetoric between Russia and the European Union, often used by political parties and international media, should be approached with caution. As Mghdesyan pointed out to Meridiano 13: “Armenia still has a particular dependence on Russia, especially in terms of security. Of course, this dependence is not as strong as it once was, but it cannot be completely overlooked. There is also economic and energy dependence. At present, there is no alternative market to Russia for Armenian agricultural products. Likewise, there is no other country able to supply Armenia with gas at such low prices, around 170 dollars, which is an extremely sensitive factor for the Armenian economy.”

“For this reason,” he adds, “in Russia there is an understanding that, although they may not necessarily oppose a change of power in Armenia, they will still be forced to cooperate with whichever government emerges from the vote. With some, it will be more difficult, with others easier, but they will continue to work with that government, and that government will continue to work with them.”

 

This article was originally published in Italian on the Meridiano 13 website and social media channels.

Aleksej Tilman is an Italian communications specialist with a strong interest in the Caucasus. He covers the region for Meridiano 13 and other outlets, including Q Code Magazine and Valigia Blu.