Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s party leads in the Armenia’s parliamentary election that would determine whether he gets mandate strong enough to reorient the country toward Europe even as tensions with Russia grow.

Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party is leading with about 55% of the vote with around 20% of ballots counted, according to preliminary results from the Central Election Commission as of 2 a.m. local time. It is followed by the main rival Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia party at around 22%.

The Armenia alliance led by another Pashinyan opponent, former president Robert Kocharyan, is narrowly clearing the 8% threshold required for electoral blocs to enter parliament. Turnout reached almost 59%, the Central Election Commission announced after polls closed Sunday.

Pashinyan downplayed frictions with Moscow in comments to reporters after casting his vote. He described Russia’s temporary import restrictions on Armenian agricultural goods including fruits and vegetables as a “working issue” and an “artificial tension,” saying such disputes are routine within the Eurasian Economic Union.

Pashinyan also stressed that Armenia isn’t in a position to launch an European Union accession process because it’s “not ready.” He said he wouldn’t determine the timing of any such process, saying the decision would ultimately be put to a referendum.

“My task is for the people of Armenia to have alternatives; the people will decide which path they want to take,” he said, while also characterizing pressure from Eurasian Economic Union partners over Armenia’s choices as a “tactical mistake,” referring to calls for Yerevan to make an immediate geopolitical choice.

His main challenger, the Russian-Armenian billionaire Karapetyan, is under house arrest but was allowed to vote at a polling station and talk to members of the press. He complained that more than 100 of his supporters had been detained.

Karapetyan positions himself as a proponent of strategic balance. “We must have good relations with everyone — with the U.S., the E.U., and Russia,” he said, arguing that Armenia cannot afford alignment with any single external partner and must instead maintain simultaneous ties with all major power centers to support national development.

So far, only four out 18 parties competing for at least 101 seats in Armenia’s National Assembly made it past the required threshold. The fourth bloc in the parliament will likely be tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia party: It is on track to return to parliament for the first time in eight years, with about 5% of the vote as single parties need to secure less support than alliances.

Nearly 2.5 million people are eligible to vote in the election that opposition parties have cast as a referendum on Pashinyan’s efforts to reduce Armenia’s dependence on Moscow and deepen ties with the E.U. and the U.S. Some have accused the incumbent of making excessive concessions in pursuit of a peace agreement following Azerbaijan’s 2023 capture of Nagorno-Karabakh that prompted an exodus of its ethnic Armenian residents.

President Donald Trump has endorsed Pashinyan, who first came to power following Armenia’s 2018 “Velvet Revolution.” After Russia in May began imposing restrictions on imports from Armenia as apparent retaliation for its desire to seek E.U. membership, the bloc stepped up financial assistance to the government in Yerevan and eased trade measures for some Armenian products.

A transport corridor called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity is planned to run through Armenia linking Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan. A partnership with Armenia to manage the route will give the U.S. a deep economic stake in the strategically important region for as long as 99 years.

____

(With assistance from Ilya Arkhipov.)

©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.