Armenia’s Political Climate Heats Up as Elections Draw Closer

Executive Summary:

• Armenia’s political climate is heating up ahead of the 2026 elections, with a gradually more emboldened opposition poised to exploit frustrations with attempts to normalize relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye to oust Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan from power.
• A finalized peace treaty with Azerbaijan remains unsigned due to constitutional issues, and Pashinyan’s attempts to pivot the country away from Moscow toward Brussels and Washington, D.C. have yet to yield tangible results.
• Armenia’s intelligence services and senior officials warn of potential foreign interference and radicalization as the 2026 elections approach, and civil society groups are growing concerned that democratic progress is in decline. 

Amid growing tensions in the Armenian National Assembly, Armenia’s political climate continues to intensify ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. The opposition is ramping up efforts to discredit Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, this time criticizing his policy of normalizing relations with neighboring Türkiye (see EDM, May 6, 2024; Azatutyun, April 22; OBCT, May 12). The situation has been further inflamed by an incident in which an opposition blogger was reportedly assaulted by pro-Pashinyan members of a Yerevan district council (Azatutyun, May 2). Last week, Pashinyan also lost his temper against opposition lawmakers during a parliamentary session, which critics interpreted as a threat to arrest opposition members of parliament who had accused members of his party of corruption (Azatutyun, May 7, 8, 14). Despite likely being an impulsive and poorly judged overreaction, the episode highlights the mounting pressure on the embattled prime minister as the elections draw nearer.

Last week, Armenia’s Ministry of Justice drafted legislation that would force the removal of slanderous content. This means the government would effectively “curb press freedom” if the media, especially pro-opposition, does not self-regulate itself (Azatutyun, March 9). A journalist in Armenia’s southernmost Siunik region looks set to be prosecuted for her reporting on anti-Pashinyan protests that took place four years ago (Azatutyun, May 19). There are growing concerns that democratic progress is now in decline in Armenia as Pashinyan sets his sights on his political rivals and other critical voices in the country (Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, April 8; Caucasus Watch, April 9; Azatutyun; Eurasianet, May 14). 

According to the latest Marketing Professional Group (MPG)/Gallup International survey conducted between April 29 and May 2, Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party’s electoral chances remain low (MPG, May 2; Eurasianet, May 6). As a previous poll demonstrated in January, only 11 to 11.5 percent of respondents said they would re-elect the current government. A combined 20 percent of respondents, however, would vote for others representing the four main parties that made up the previous governments under the Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan administrations consecutively from 1998–2018 (News.am, January 31; ArmInfo, March 6). Just over 28 percent of respondents said they were undecided, intended to spoil their ballots, or were against all. Though such intentions could change over the coming year, there is nonetheless plenty for Pashinyan to worry about following recent defeats in local elections in Gyumri, where a pro-Russia candidate became mayor and pro-EU parties failed to pass the threshold for representation (see EDM, April 21).

Around 60 percent of respondents claimed that they want Russia to remain engaged in Armenia-Azerbaijan talks, while only 37 percent support EU membership despite Pashinyan’s attempts to pivot away from Moscow toward Brussels and Washington D.C. (see EDM, January 28; MPG, May 2; Eurasianet, May 6). The initial enthusiasm for what was likely symbolic only has certainly dissipated (Azatutyun, May 9). In January, 51 percent of respondents in a survey by the same pollster stated that they positively welcomed EU membership in the next 10 years (MPG, January 20). 

On May 9, Pashinyan was one of a few leaders who accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend the annual Victory Day military parade in Moscow (ArmenPress, May 9). The European Union had warned prospective member countries not to do so, but Armenia could hardly afford not to, as it is reliant on Russian trade, energy, and some logistics (see EDM, January 28; Armenpress, April 15). Pashinyan is believed to now take a more cautious approach toward geopolitical rivalries in the region that could benefit Russia if any rapprochement were to occur (Armenian Mirror Spectator, May 17).

As was the case last year, a small number of opposition members of parliament intend to impeach Pashinyan before the 2026 vote (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, June 12, 2024; Azatutyun, May 6). There is little unity or confidence, however, that this will work. National Assembly Speaker Alen Simonyan claims that Civil Contract will attract over 50 percent of the vote in 2026 (Arka, May 8). Even if Pashinyan does not lose outright, he could find himself reliant on other parties to ensure a majority. This was the case in recent local elections, including in the capital, Yerevan, in September 2023 (Azatutyun, September 23, 2023). In the coming vote, Pashinyan will likely use his “peace agenda” to retain power while the opposition will use it against him (AIR Center, March 2025). 

In March, Armenia and Azerbaijan announced that the text of a peace agreement had been finalized (see EDM, March 24). Baku, however, says it cannot be signed until Yerevan removes a preamble from its constitution, which Azerbaijan claims includes territorial claims on Azerbaijan, and jointly dissolves the OSCE (Organization for Security Co-operation in Europe) Minsk Group, the international body co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States that had monopolized negotiations before 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan but had become defunct by February 2022 when Russia again invaded Ukraine (see EDM, June 25, 2024; OBCT, March 1). The international community supports the signing of the peace agreement even if the Armenian opposition does not. The European Union is eager to develop further trading routes to Central Asia through Türkiye, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The former Biden administration in the United States was even more eager to do so to limit or prevent Russian and Chinese involvement in such strategically important logistical projects in the region (see EDM March 7, September 19, 2023, January 25, 2024).

In the latest MPG survey, some 86 percent of respondents say they want the full text of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement made public before it is signed (MPG, May 2). Pashinyan has said that the full text will be available once it is confirmed that the signing will take place. Regardless, it is clear that the 2026 elections could become more about geopolitical interests in the South Caucasus and its periphery than domestic issues. This likelihood further risks next year’s vote becoming especially heated. It is not implausible to consider that the European Union and Russia will attempt to influence the outcome of the vote just as they were accused of doing last year in neighboring Georgia (see EDM, March 13, September 11, 2024, April 30; Panorama, May 19). Meanwhile, in its first-ever public report, released in January, Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned of attempts to destabilize the country in the pre-election year as concerns about domestic radicalization linger (see EDM, October 7, 2024; ArmenPress, January 23).

The opposition has also warned that any attempt to hold a referendum on changing the constitution will be turned into a vote on Pashinyan’s past, present, and future (Eurasianet, April 2). If Pashinyan’s electoral chances remain 11.5 percent, the traditional parliamentary opposition could manage 20 percent, but only if it manages to unite. Only 8 percent of respondents said they would vote for those parties supporting the country’s second president, Kocharyan, and 3.7 percent for the third, Pashinyan’s predecessor, Sargsyan. The election is likely to be determined by administrative resources, government infrastructure projects in the country’s regions, international support for Pashinyan, and the opposition’s ability—or more likely not—to overcome their differences. The emergence of alternative voices with no direct links to Kocharyan, Sargsyan, or even Pashinyan himself could change that prognosis. 

Meanwhile, a former Karabakh commander, Lebanese-Armenian Zhirayr Sefilyan, has been called in for questioning on May 12 in connection with the October 27, 1999 terrorist attack on the National Assembly that saw eight top officials assassinated (Azatutyun, May 12). Even though he denies any connection to the attack, alleging that the government rather intends to discredit him before next year’s vote, Sefilyan is no stranger to controversy in Armenia (Azatutyun, May 12). The National Democratic Pole, an ultra-nationalist extra-parliamentary coalition formed around Sefilyan, opposes Pashinyan and already says removing Pashinyan through the ballot box alone will prove impossible (168.am, March 24). In 2006, he was arrested for allegedly planning a coup d’état and threatening to use violence in parliamentary elections held the following year (Eurasianet, December 14, 2006, archive accessed May 13). In 2016, Sefilyan’s supporters, made up of war veterans, raided a police station, resulting in the deaths of three police officers (Azatutyun, July 17, 2016). All were also aimed at preventing a peace deal from being hammered out between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 

“It is possible to bring people to the streets but it is very difficult to keep them there … with unrealistic statements, innuendos, and patriotic appeals instead of political programs,” one political scientist told local media earlier this month, potentially raising the stakes even higher (168.am, May 7). Senior Armenian officials, including National Assembly Speaker Simonyan and Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan, also warn that Russia has been engaged in a “hybrid war” in Armenia since 2018 when Pashinyan came to power (ArmInfo, May 5; ArmenPress, May 9). Moscow denies the accusation, but the information sphere will certainly influence the outcome, whether from domestic or external sources. There is a large overlap between both, and the issues are genuinely organic (Aravot, May 6). Regardless, the stakes remain high for the country’s future post-2026, especially if there is no progress on signing a peace deal with Azerbaijan or if a nationalist political force gains more influence. Even if Pashinyan’s party were to win the most votes in next year’s elections compared to individual rivals, without a majority of parliamentary deputies in the National Assembly, it could usher in a period of instability in the future.