This analysis was prepared for commonspace.eu by journalist Onnik James Krikorian.
Next year’s parliamentary elections in Armenia will not focus on the economy or other domestic issues, but rather on the country’s place in the surrounding region and relations with its neighbours.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, down but not out following military defeat and political upheaval, has staked his future on reaching what would prove to be a historic peace agreement with Azerbaijan. But with public trust at an all-time low, disillusionment among the electorate could make this the most unpredictable vote since independence was declared in 1991.
Armenia will hold parliamentary elections on 7 June 2026, its first regularly scheduled national vote since April 2017.
That last vote delivered no surprises, allowing then-President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican Party to remain in power. However, his attempt the following year to lead the country beyond a permissible two presidential term limit triggered mass protests led by a headstrong former journalist, Nikol Pashinyan. Sargsyan’s gamble was made possible by constitutional amendments adopted controversially in 2015 transforming Armenia from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary system of governance.
That allowed Sargsyan to extend his rule by assuming the post of prime minister in April 2018 when his presidency expired. Barely a week later, the protests forced his resignation instead. Pashinyan seized the moment, installing himself as prime minister, and snap elections were held in December the same year through which he could replace a parliament dominated by deputies loyal to Sargsyan and his predecessor, Robert Kocharyan, with his own. Pashinyan’s My Step Alliance won in a landslide with 70.44 percent of the vote while the Prosperous Armenia party of Kocharyan-era oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan came second with just 8.26 percent.
Sargsyan’s Republicans failed to cross the 5 percent threshold and the international community enthusiastically welcomed Pashinyan’s ascent to power. In retrospect, however, that was premature.
Pashinyan lacked the experience and patience to govern the country or to negotiate with Baku to resolve the still simmering conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, a formerly autonomous region then inhabited mainly by ethnic Armenians situated within neighbouring Azerbaijan. Though it was always feared that failure to reach a negotiated settlement would lead to another war, a series of blunders by Pashinyan’s government, and some ill-advised actions and words, made that inevitable in September 2020 when it finally did.
Yerevan lost that war to Baku as well as the territory it had occupied surrounding Karabakh for over 26 years. Many commentators predicted that this would or should have been the end of Pashinyan’s premiership but snap elections in June 2021 returned his Civil Contract party to power albeit this time with 53.95 percent of the vote. Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican Party returned to parliament as part of the Pativ Unem (I have Honour) alliance with 5.22 percent while another bloc, the Kocharyan-led Hayastan (Armenia), mostly made up by the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D), received 21.11.
Despite the drop in support, it was a remarkable achievement for an incumbent premiere that had led the country to what was widely considered a humiliating defeat. It also arguably provided Pashinyan with a mandate to pursue his much-touted “peace agenda,” even though even though others accused him of treason.
It will be that agenda that will be at the centre of next year’s vote. After years of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, facilitated or partly mediated at various stages by the Russian Federation, European Union, and United States, before becoming bilateral, a draft Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan was finalised by the sides in March and initialled by the foreign ministers at a summit held between Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on 8 August. At stake now is signing the treaty.
According to a survey conducted in June by the International Republican Institute (IRI), 47 percent of respondents supported the signing of a peace agreement with Azerbaijan while 10 percent reserved judgement until the terms of the treaty were public. On 11 August, the foreign ministries of both countries posted it online. Public reaction has so far been muted, perhaps indicating that most Armenians will not oppose an agreement that has been widely welcomed globally. Unless the opposition changes its stance, Pashinyan remains the only “candidate of peace” on the ballot.
But this does not mean that victory for Pashinyan is guaranteed, though it does still look the most likely. Nonetheless, in 2023 and 2025, Pashinyan’s Civil Contract suffered important local electoral setbacks in Armenia’s two main cities of Yerevan and Gyumri. It only narrowly clung on to the first and was defeated in the second. The opposition is already analysing those outcomes as they decide on strategies for next year. In Gyumri, for example, opposition parties did not form a united electoral bloc though they did pool resources after election day to prevent the selection of Pashinyan’s candidate by the Council of Elders as Mayor.
In Yerevan, Civil Contract had to rely on a small party led by a controversial video blogger and former policeman to secure enough council votes for its mayoral candidate, a reflection in particular of low voter turnout. This has sparked debate within the opposition. Some believe parties might be more effective by acting independently. Now the prime minister is selected by parliament rather than directly by the public, it will be whether Pashinyan has enough deputies to re-select him as Prime Minister. At the same time, any new or minor opposition groups aligning with those of the former regimes risk losing public support in the election itself, making them hesitant to cooperate with Sargsyan or Kocharyan.
Moreover, a few have argued, the opposition parties should explain their own position on ending the conflict with Azerbaijan rather than simply oppose what has been agreed with Pashinyan. They are already divided over whether regime change can be achieved through elections, or street protests, civil disobedience or unlikely impeachment efforts, or occupying government buildings. Armenia, after all, is no stranger to political clashes, assassinations, and coup attempts even if the opposition has failed to amass sufficient numbers on the streets, despite growing discontent, since 2018.
In June’s IRI survey, only 36 percent of respondents said they believed that the country was heading in the right direction. Pashinyan’s approval ratings have also steadily fallen since 2020, with only 13 percent trusting the premiere, though the closest opposition rival, Robert Kocharyan, managed just 4 percent. A staggering 61 percent do not trust any political leader, leaving room for a third force to emerge. One new political force has already been announced by Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian businessman currently in pre-trial detention on alleged coup charges. Other new forces could emerge by the end of year.
For Pashinyan, delivering on his peace agenda could prove crucial to avoid having to reluctantly form a coalition if he fails to win outright in a first round. If no party secures a decisive victory, the constitution mandates a second-round vote with the two front runners. This provision was included to ensure a stable majority for Sargsyan when it was adopted a decade ago, but could theoretically benefit the opposition now as well. The political climate is already tense. Several opposition figures, including clergy from the Armenian Apostolic Church opposed to Pashinyan, are already in pre-trial detention and it is likely that more pressure will be brought to bear on his critics.
At the same time, constitutional reform looms large. Pashinyan has pledged to replace the current version, and it is believed that he is willing to meet Azerbaijan's requirement for a controversial preamble referencing territorial claims against it be removed. Pashinyan has anyway wanted to change the existing constitution since coming to power in 2018 given that few have much faith in it. Instead, it is believed that both Kocharyan and Sargsyan inflated voter turnout and the results in votes on previous amendments in 2005 and 2015. However, calls by Azerbaijan to remove the preamble in order to sign a peace treaty has led the opposition to claim that Baku is calling the shots, and not Yerevan.
Nonetheless, it is worth noting that Pashinyan increasingly sees value in changing the important document to chart a new post-war direction for the country. He hopes that this would effectively eradicate the legacy of the Kocharyan and Sargsyan regimes, and coincidentally his own after 2020, by starting anew with his concept of a fourth republic, a “Real Armenia,” as he frequently calls it.
But to pass, it will require the approval of at least one quarter of eligible voters, raising questions about whether holding it alongside the parliamentary vote could ensure that it does not fail on turnout alone. Otherwise, it would have to be held later in 2026 or even in 2027 when such a task might prove more difficult even if not impossible. Either way, the proposed changes in general will have to be enticing enough for the majority of voters to prefer it over the current one. The draft of a new constitution should be ready by the time of the next elections, making it already a campaign issue.
Against this backdrop, external influences are also likely to increase, especially as Pashinyan continues to diversify the country’s economy, energy, and security spheres away from Moscow. The European Union is already attempting to counter domestic and foreign malign information campaigns, but effectiveness is questionable. Provoking emotional responses, usually negative, is often more successful than appealing to reason. That, after all, is the key aim of disinformation campaigns, full of existential scenarios intended to divide and sow panic. That has formed the main thrust of the opposition's rhetoric against Pashinyan after all.
Despite attempts to turn the Washington D.C. summit against him, there has so far been little sign of any major outrage. Pashinyan has also not been idle and continues to travel abroad to form and enhance new relations, most recently in China and Japan. Attempts to allay fears from Iran over the proposed Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) along the border with Armenia, connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakchivan exclave, continue. Relations with Iran might even be promoted to the level of a strategic partnership, just as they were with China last week. India, France, and others could follow.
It is likely that the European Political Community (EPC) Summit, to be held next year in Yerevan, just weeks before the elections, could serve the same purpose, strengthening further relations with the EU, just as happened with the U.S. in January. Few believe that Pashinyan seeks to join the European Union given Armenia's reliance on the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), but moving closer is still a positive development. If the opposition seeks to allege that Pashinyan is completely turning his back on Russia with nothing to replace or compliment it, Pashinyan instead stresses how diversifying policy in several key spheres will instead benefit the country more in the long term.
Indeed, Pashinyan argues that his policy instead bolsters Armenia’s independence and provides it with more regional and international opportunities than before. All of this will require the normalisation of relations with Azerbaijan and Turkiye and the subsequent unblocking of regional economic and transport connections.
Even so, ten months before the vote, the outcome still remains difficult to predict. Though it still seems most likely that the incumbent will win, a great deal will also be determined during the official campaign period itself, and new developments on the ground. If peace with Azerbaijan is finally within reach, and there are signs that this is the case, it will be difficult for voters to reject stability instead of insecurity and the further risk of war. Ultimately, the 2026 election will determine not just who governs Armenia, but whether the country can finally emerge from decades of conflict and semi-regional isolation, or if it is destined to remain trapped by it.
That might prove enough to sway even reluctant support for Pashinyan at the ballot box. The opposition has still yet to offer any viable alternative – or even one at all.
Source: Onnik James Krikorian is a journalist, analyst, and consultant from the United Kingdom based in Tbilisi, Georgia, since 2012. From 1998 until then he was based in Yerevan, Armenia, covering issues related to democracy, society, and conflict. In 1994 he first visited Karabakh as a journalist and photographer, covered the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia, and consulted for intergovernmental organisations on countering violent extremism. He writes news and analysis for international media and various publications. He can be followed on X at @onewmphoto.
Photo: Picture was created by AI
