Armenia's Ruling Pro-Europe Party Wins Parliamentary Election, Deepening Shift from Russia

Pashinyan's Civil Contract party finished first with 49.8% of the vote, well ahead of the runner-up Strong Armenia alliance — led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who campaigned from house arrest on charges of inciting a coup — which received approximately 23.3%. Former President Robert Kocharyan's Armenia Alliance came third with 9.9%, and the Prosperous Armenia party narrowly cleared the 4% threshold. Turnout stood at roughly 59%. The election took place against a backdrop of intensifying Russian pressure: in the weeks before the vote, Moscow imposed sweeping trade restrictions on Armenian agricultural and food exports, which the European Commission described as 'economic coercion,' while President Vladimir Putin drew explicit comparisons between Armenia's EU aspirations and Ukraine's pre-war trajectory. International observers and analysts described the election as broadly free and fair, though Armenia's investigative committee opened 59 criminal cases over alleged electoral violations, and opposition figures accused the government of politically motivated prosecutions. Pashinyan fell short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to call a constitutional referendum — a key demand from Azerbaijan as a condition for finalizing a peace treaty — leaving the peace process with a significant unresolved hurdle. Both the United States, where President Trump publicly endorsed Pashinyan, and the European Union, which announced a €50 million emergency support package, congratulated Pashinyan on his victory, while Russia's foreign ministry alleged 'unprecedented pressure' on opposition parties and Western interference.