Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory for himself and Civil Contract party on Monday, apparently winning a close race with a surprisingly strong showing over several pro-Russia parties and alliances.

“This is a historic victory that will definitely ensure the permanence and development of Armenia, and, of course, we will have lasting and institutional peace,” Pashinyan declared in a press conference on Monday.

Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party wound up with 50.1 percent of the vote, with about 91 percent of the ballots counted as of Monday. The Russia-leaning Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance finished in distant second and third places with 23.4 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively.

The head of Strong Armenia is Samvel Karapetyan, a billionaire who is considered among the richest men in Armenia – and who made a great deal of his fortune by doing business in Russia. He holds both Armenian and Russian citizenship.

Karapetyan was arrested in June 2025 for allegedly threatening to overthrow Pashinyan’s government during a bitter feud between the incumbent prime minister and Catholicos Karekin II, head of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Pashinyan has made no secret of wanting to dilute the political power of the church and replace Karekin as its leader. Last June, Pashinyan accused Karekin of breaking his vow of celibacy to father a child, called on him to step down, and threatened a government crackdown on corrupt clergy.

Karapetyan fired back by declaring his allegiance to the Armenian Apostolic Church and warning: “If the politicians do not succeed, we will intervene in our own way in this campaign against the church.” He has been under house arrest ever since.

Pashinyan’s government issued six arrest warrants for members of Strong Armenia last week on charges of buying votes to rig the election.

The final vote tally significantly outperformed Civil Contract’s performance in the final round of polls, although it was still expected to defeat Strong Armenia by at least ten points. Election observers credited unexpectedly high voter turnout with pushing Civil Contract over the 50 percent mark.

Pashinyan’s party will nevertheless come up short of the 70 percent majority of parliamentary seats he wanted in order to revise the national constitution.

The election was seen as a test of Pashinyan’s agenda to move Armenia away from its longstanding alliance with Russia, a relationship that began unraveling when Russia abandoned Armenia during its conflicts with Azerbaijan in the 2020s. 

Russia stopped trying to convince Armenians to stay loyal and began threatening them, most recently punishing Armenia with import restrictions on its goods. No sooner had Pashinyan declared victory than Moscow doubled down with even more trade restrictions, including mineral water, fruit, vegetables, and especially fish, a major Armenian product.

Pashinyan has said he will find alternative buyers for Armenia’s exports, moving ever closer to the United States and the European Union. His election victory drew swift and fulsome congratulations from European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The spirit of the Velvet Revolution you led in 2018 is alive and well,” Von der Leyen said on Monday, referencing the 2018 uprising that displaced Armenia’s Russia-friendly political establishment and brought Pashinyan to power.

“We deeply value our partnership with a democratic Armenia that is drawing ever closer to Europe. Armenia can count on us,” von der Leyen declared.

Zelensky said the election delivered a victory for “Armenia’s sovereignty, independence, and right to live as you determine yourselves,” and urged the EU to move quickly to bring Armenia into its fold.

“Russia exercised ⁠unprecedented pressure, using public threats and trade measures, trying to substantially alter the results of the election. As members of the European Parliament, we strongly condemn this blatant interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state,” Edita Estrella, a member of the Council of Europe’s mission to observe the Armenian election, said on Monday.

Pashinyan said on Monday that he also hoped his “historic victory” would “draw a positive response from Turkey and Azerbaijan.” This touched on the more difficult portion of his agenda, which involves a lasting peace with Armenia’s Muslim neighbor and its patrons in Turkey.

Azerbaijan has said it will not proceed with peace negotiations unless Armenia revises its constitution to eliminate what the Azeris describe as an implicit claim on the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan largely conquered by force in 2020 and 2023.

The Armenians have argued that their constitution does not actually refer to the disputed territory – their declaration of independence from the Soviet Union does, and the constitution refers to the declaration. This argument has failed to sway Azerbaijan, which wants the constitutional language eliminated entirely.

The Trump administration brokered successful peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan last summer, including promises by Azerbaijan not to annex any more territory claimed by Armenia – but Azerbaijan refused to sign the deal until the Armenian constitution is amended to satisfy its concerns. Pashinyan said he was willing to begin a constitutional convention, but even after doing unexpectedly well in this weekend’s election, he still does not have enough seats in the legislature to push it through without forming a coalition.

The fate of the constitution might be up in the air, but Pashinyan was re-elected with enough support to continue a geopolitical realignment that saw Armenia exit from Russia’s Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), join President Donald Trump’s Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), and host EU summits in Armenia as part of his push for membership.

Pashinyan’s opponents appear to have played their last few cards against the course he has charted from Armenia, including hard feelings among refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, lingering deep suspicions of Turkey as a partner for peace, and anguish over losing a series of military confrontations with Azerbaijan.

Karapetyan’s campaign created A.I. videos that showed people from Azerbaijan swarming into Armenia as settlers and overwhelming the locals, as a consequence of Pashinyan’s hoped-for peace treaty, but those videos do not appear to have swayed many Armenian voters.

“Armenia wants to cut its losses and move on. The taboo around normalising relations with Turkey largely disappeared years ago. As for Azerbaijan, many Armenians have come to accept the reality that they lost the war and have few alternatives,” Richard Giragosian of a Yerevan-based think tank called the Regional Studies Center told the UK Guardian.