Armenia Divided: Election Results Deprive Pashinyan of His Former Influence

Nikol Pashinyan's party failed to secure an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections, leaving the Armenian prime minister without the ability to freely pursue his most ambitious reform agenda.

Photo: Wikipedia by Martin St-Amant, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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Opposition in Armenia Refuses to Recognize Election Results

Voter turnout in Armenia's June 7 parliamentary elections reached 58.97%, with 1,476,597 citizens casting ballots out of 2,503,976 eligible voters.

According to results compiled by the Central Election Commission and calculated using the relevant electoral formulas, including the distribution of seats allocated to national minorities and first-place vote adjustments, the composition of the National Assembly is expected to be as follows:

• 61 seats — Civil Contract, led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
• 28 seats — the Strong Armenia alliance of Samvel Karapetyan.
• 11 seats — the Armenia alliance of Robert Kocharyan.
• 5 seats — Prosperous Armenia, led by Gagik Tsarukyan.

Civil Contract is two seats short of the three-fifths constitutional majority required for constitutional control. Preliminary figures indicate that the ruling party suffered its largest losses in Yerevan and in the southern border province of Syunik, where opposition forces traditionally maintain stronger positions.

Armenia's Investigative Committee has opened 59 criminal cases related to alleged election violations, including multiple-voting schemes known as "carousel voting.” Nine individuals have been detained. Authorities also received complaints alleging pressure on public-sector employees to vote for the ruling party, as well as accusations that Pashinyan used war-related rhetoric to intimidate voters during the campaign.

According to Samvel Karapetyan, the election campaign unfolded under pressure directed at his supporters.

"These were shameful elections: 75 of our comrades were arrested, and more than 700 were detained.”

Opposition forces, particularly the Strong Armenia alliance and the Armenia alliance, categorically refused to recognize the results, accusing the authorities of electoral fraud and political pressure. Opposition representatives and the Investigative Committee reported a number of serious incidents during the voting process.

"The Moldovan scenario, Moldovan numbers, exactly the same,” political analyst Mika Badalyan wrote on Telegram in response to the election results.

According to Badalyan, the elections were not fair and "51% of the vote was stretched in Pashinyan's favor,” although he added that "no one expected otherwise.” He recalled that Robert Kocharyan had repeatedly warned that "if the authorities attempt to repeat the Moldovan scenario, they will face a revolution.” Badalyan argued that the political crisis in Armenia could only be resolved "in the streets” and expressed confidence that "everything will work out for us.”

'It Could Have Been Worse'

Government officials had clearly hoped to secure a constitutional majority, but strong voter turnout prevented that outcome, according to Arsen Tavadyan, Associate Professor of Civil Law and Procedure at Yerevan State University.

"It could have been much worse. The current electoral system gives the ruling force a significant advantage and makes a transfer of power through elections practically impossible,” he said.

According to Tavadyan, the Civil Contract party emerged from the election significantly weakened.

"Whatever happens next, one fact can already be recorded: they no longer represent the political choice of the majority of the population. They are a government of the minority,” Tavadyan was quoted as saying by Pastinfo.am.

Pashinyan Loses Freedom to Push Through Major Reforms

Without a constitutional majority, Pashinyan will lose the ability to implement what many regard as his main strategic objective: the complete replacement of Armenia's current Constitution.

Baku and Ankara have demanded that Yerevan remove references from the Constitution's preamble to the Declaration that mentions the reunification of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Without constitutional control in parliament, Pashinyan will be unable to fulfill that condition, potentially delaying or freezing the signing of a peace agreement with Azerbaijan.

The Civil Contract election platform also included proposals to "reform” relations between the state and the Armenian Apostolic Church, effectively reducing the Church's influence. However, the Church's status is protected by the Constitution, and opposition parties would be able to block any attempt to increase pressure on religious institutions.

Pashinyan may also find it extremely difficult to secure parliamentary approval for a political decision to fully withdraw Armenia from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), although he is expected to continue pursuing European Union funding initiatives.

That scenario, of course, assumes that the two missing seats are not recovered through a recount or other developments during the final certification of election results.