Armenia's governing party wins parliamentary majority with 49.8 percent of vote

Armenia's governing Civil Contract party won 49.8 percent of the vote in Sunday's parliamentary election, giving it 64 of 105 seats. The result allows Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to keep a parliamentary majority one day after he campaigned in Yerevan.

Election outcome and opposition performance The two main opposition parties, Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance, together won 41 seats. Strong Armenia took 29 seats and Armenia Alliance took 12. Analyst Richard Giragosian said the two parties are unlikely to cooperate because of friction between their leaders, Russian-Armenian oligarch Samvel Karapetyan and former President Robert Kocharian.

Policy shift after Nagorno-Karabakh loss Pashinyan campaigned on normalizing relations with Azerbaijan and Turkiye and on keeping Armenia within its internationally recognized borders. Nagorno-Karabakh no longer appears in the government's defense reform or national security strategy.

Zaur Shiriyev of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center said many voters are prepared to support an Armenia less defined by conflict. Svante Cornell of the Institute for Security and Development Policy said the opposition represented a return to nationalism and conflict, while the government offered a different approach.

Russian influence and external factors International observers accused Russia of attempting to interfere before the vote. Analysts said Moscow retains economic leverage through discounted gas and export markets but has lost political authority. Benyamin Poghosyan of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies said relations with Azerbaijan and Turkiye, along with fallout from the conflict in Iran, are the main foreign-policy drivers for Armenia.