“In previous elections, we saw that voters critical of Pashinyan ultimately voted for him because, in the end, any other alternative was even worse for them,” says political geographer Vincenc Kopeček.
Although the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh calmed down after last year’s declaration between Yerevan and Baku, the issue has re-emerged in Armenia’s election campaign.
“Opposition parties first claim that they are not against peace, but then say that if they come to power, they will begin to reassess the peace process. I want to say quite openly and without mincing words that this would mean war – with consequences for Armenia not only in the form of territorial losses, but also the loss of sovereignty,” stated the current Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan in March.
The enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh had been largely controlled by ethnic Armenians since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2023, however, neighbouring Azerbaijan violated the previous ceasefire and launched a lightning offensive. Russia brokered a new ceasefire, which nevertheless strongly favoured Azerbaijan, and 120,000 ethnic Armenians were forcibly displaced from their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh.
In the early 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh, then predominantly inhabited by Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with Yerevan’s support and declared the internationally unrecognised Republic of Artsakh. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War ended with a ceasefire in 1994.
Azerbaijan managed to regain much of Nagorno-Karabakh after the second war in 2020. The conflict continued at a lower intensity in the following years, and after another successful offensive in 2023, Azerbaijan brought the entire region back under its control.
Last August, Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a declaration at the White House, in the presence of US President Donald Trump, in which they committed to peace. Since meeting Trump, Yerevan and Baku have taken steps to end the conflict, which has lasted for almost four decades, although they have not yet signed a formal peace agreement, Reuters noted. The Foreign Policy (FP) also points out that the agreement would grant Azerbaijan unrestricted trade access through Armenian territory – in Armenia, this concession is widely seen as a reward for Azerbaijan’s military actions, adds FP.
Peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan could be scuppered by a condition that isn’t even in the agreement (in Czech)
“Those responsible for the deaths of thousands of our heroes and for the surrender of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) must also be held to account,” stated former Armenian President Robert Kocharyan on this matter, as part of his criticism of the current government. And he is not stopping there; in March, Kocharyan announced his candidacy with his Alliance of Armenia.
However, Vincenc Kopeček, a political geographer from the Department of Social Geography and Regional Development at the Faculty of Science, University of Ostrava, points out that it is Kocharyan, who served as head of state from 1998 to 2008, who bears a significant share of the blame for Armenia’s failure to resolve the Karabakh conflict constructively, and, according to the expert, also drove the country into Russia’s embrace.
Kocharyan claims that his bloc “supports peace with Azerbaijan”, but he also says that it “must be based on genuine security guarantees”.
In the elections, Pashinyan will also face competition from the Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who owns Electric Networks, Armenia’s leading energy company.
Karapetyan was arrested last year shortly after expressing his support for clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. At the end of June last year, a number of clergymen, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, were arrested – Pashinyan announced at the time that the security forces had foiled an attempted coup. The clergy had openly called for a “change to Pashinyan’s regime”. It was whilst in custody that Karapetyan founded his party, Strong Armenia.
The crisis between the government and the church in Armenia is escalating. A Russian billionaire has also been arrested (in Czech)
“Pashinyan’s voters have accepted the crackdown on the Church, and the question after the election will be whether, in the event of a Pashinyan victory, the Armenian Apostolic Church will undergo a process of renewal, or whether the Church will become a pro-Russian conservative stronghold,” noted Kopeček.
FP notes that Pashinyan is doing everything he can to prevent his party’s defeat and is using “tactics from an autocratic system” to do so — under his rule, opposition members have been arrested and critical journalists detained. The prime minister is also undermining the independence of the judiciary, FP adds, while also pointing to interference in the functioning of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The Caucasus-based website OC Media highlighted Pashinyan’s campaign in Yerevan, during which an altercation took place between the Prime Minister and a participant at the meeting, a refugee from Nagorno-Karabakh. The man was reportedly later arrested on suspicion of hooliganism.
According to Foreign Policy, one might expect the EU to oppose “Pashinyan’s electoral manipulation” as a violation of its principles. However, the Armenian prime minister claims he is fighting against Russian influence, a claim European leaders believe, and they pay little attention to Pashinyan’s attacks on democracy, FP reports.
However, the EU has repeatedly stressed the need for judicial reform, the fight against corruption, greater accountability of the Armenian government to its citizens, and transparency.
Pashinyan has repeatedly labelled his opponents, including Karapetyan, as “foreign agents”. This month, the Russian independent website The Insider (TI) published an investigation alleging that Karapetyan had links to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
The investigation cited leaked databases which are said to show that when Karapetyan was issued with an international passport in Russia in 1999, his place of work was listed as the FSB Information Centre.
Following the publication of the investigation, Karapetyan claimed that Pashinyan was behind it – Pashinyan himself shared The Insider’s report on his social media accounts.
The Euronews website also reports that Armenia has been the target of a Russian disinformation campaign for several months. Analysts from the Russian-language project of Polish broadcaster TVP, Vottak, have calculated that a total of 343 fake videos had been published by the beginning of May, describing this Russian operation as one of the most extensive in recent years – second only to the campaign recorded during last year’s Moldovan elections.
According to researchers, the campaign began in early March and was part of the so-called ‘Matryoshka’ – a pro-Kremlin disinformation operation that is increasingly making use of artificial intelligence.
The central narrative of the fake videos claims that Pashinyan’s victory – whose campaign focuses on a pro-European stance – could trigger a war between Armenia and Russia.
Armenia has rejected Russian ‘humanitarian aid’ ahead of the elections. The EU is to send a mission to the country (in Czech)
The Swedish media outlet Blankspot also reported on the acquisition of a Russian document outlining a plan to undermine the popularity of the Armenian government by amplifying pro-Russian narratives and increasing the number of pro-Russian individuals influencing public opinion in the Caucasian country.
Reuters reports that Russian officials have in recent months discussed sending Armenians living in Russia to the South Caucasus country to vote for Pashinyan’s opponents, according to five sources cited by the agency. According to Reuters, the Russian authorities estimated the cost of transporting 100,000 voters at approximately 50 million US dollars.
Meanwhile, the growing cooperation between the European Union and Armenia was demonstrated in Yerevan at the first EU–Armenia summit held in May demonstrated the growing cooperation between the European Union and Armenia. It was attended by, for example, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The meeting was characterised by a shared commitment on both sides to strengthening bilateral relations, according to Euronews. Armenia’s actual accession to the EU is not currently expected, commented political geographer Kopeček, adding that it is more a matter of a mental rapprochement. However, a European orientation is evident.
According to Kopeček, a shift away from the path towards the EU could occur if a member of the Karapetyan family were to take the prime minister’s seat. “It probably wouldn’t be a complete U-turn; even under Kocharyan, Armenia sought constructive, pragmatic relations with the EU, but it would certainly put a stop to any potential EU integration or closer cooperation. Above all, it would mean a strengthening of Russian influence in the energy sector,” says Kopeček.
Armenia has come closer to joining the European Union only ‘in spirit’ (in Czech)
Pashinyan came to power in 2018 – yet, according to Foreign Policy, his future as prime minister is uncertain. Although a February poll predicted that his Civil Contract party would win between 20 and 30 per cent of the vote, a further 30 per cent of voters were still undecided, according to the poll at the time.
If no party secures a stable parliamentary majority, either on its own or in a coalition, the vote will proceed to a second round. In that case, the opposition parties could join forces and defeat Pashinyan, writes FP. Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia is said to be the strongest challenger to Pashinyan’s party.
A strong Armenia is seeking to strengthen ties with the Kremlin, highlighting Russia’s important role in the Armenian economy and the traditional military relations between the two countries, reports FP. Kocharyan’s Alliance of Armenia is also seeking closer ties with Moscow, the website adds.
Kopeček also counts Karapetyan’s relative Narek among the prominent figures in the opposition. And Gagik Tsarukyan – an oligarch and former boxer from the Prosperous Armenia Party – is a “long-standing populist figure in Armenian politics”.
“But there isn’t a single dominant leader. However, if the opposition were to win, these three (Karapetyan, Kocharyan and Tsarukyan, ed.) would probably manage to come to some sort of agreement,” Kopeček also believes.
Armenia is expanding trade with Azerbaijan and risks becoming dependent on it (in Czech)
“The latest polls show that undecided voters are shifting towards Pashinyan, who looks set to win. But this may not be enough for him to secure a majority in parliament, as the pro-European opposition is unlikely to make it into parliament. Robert Kocharyan’s party may not make it in either, which would then pave the way for the formation of a single-party pro-European government led by Pashinyan,” says Kopeček.
“In the last election, however, we saw that undecided voters – even those critical of Pashinyan – ultimately voted for him because any other alternative was, in the end, even worse for them. That could happen again now. I can also imagine a minority government tolerated by the pragmatic Tsarukyan, but that would probably not last long,” adds Kopeček.
An article written by Klára Machková (CT), initially published on 1 June 2026 at 07:02 (CEST)