Armenia’s election: Voters to decide on Pashinyan’s peace agenda

28 May 2026 11:12 AM

EXPERT COMMENT

Armenians face a febrile campaign but feel the benefits of improved security since hostilities with Azerbaijan ended.

On 7 June Armenia will hold one of its most pivotal elections since regaining independence in 1991. The vote arrives as the country is poised between a painful redefinition of its identity and a still uncertain horizon of opportunity.  

In 2023 Armenia definitively lost the territory of Mountainous Karabakh to Azerbaijan. The struggle to control the region was a driving force of Armenia’s 1990s national independence movement, and its loss deprived Armenian nationalism of a key foundation. Yet the loss of Karabakh has also loosened Russian control over Armenian foreign policy, demonstrating Moscow’s declining power in the South Caucasus and the limits of its patronage.  

Under the banner of a ‘Real Armenia’ – rather than one with ambitions for wider borders – incumbent Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his Civil Contract party are campaigning for a final peace accord with Azerbaijan. They hope to end four decades of conflict with a final renunciation of territorial claims and Armenia’s integration into regional connectivity. Pashinyan has also recalibrated Armenia’s foreign policy with a widely discussed ‘pivot’ to the West – a move which has led to warnings of a ‘Ukraine scenario’ from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The opposition to Pashinyan includes blocs seeking to rehabilitate ties with Russia, and smaller parties with little chance of passing the threshold to enter parliament. Polls put Civil Contract ahead of its nearest rival, the ‘Strong Armenia’ bloc led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, with a plurality of voters onside.

Many voters remain undecided. But in a mid-May poll, 45 per cent of these said they believed Armenia is moving in the right direction. Despite well-founded fears over information manipulation from abroad, Pashinyan’s progress is unlikely to be halted.

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