Armenian Parliamentary speaker Simonyan leaves office after losing ruling part

Armenia’s Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan will not take up his parliamentary mandate after unexpectedly losing the ruling Civil Contract party’s backing to remain on as speaker. Simonyan held the role for five years and had played a prominent role in the party’s election campaign alongside Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Simonyan announced his decision on Thursday during what appeared to be his farewell press briefing as speaker, held in the parliament’s newly created briefing area.

At the end of June, Civil Contract’s board voted behind closed doors to nominate Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan as its candidate for parliamentary speaker in the new legislature, choosing him over Simonyan and Hayk Konjoryan, the head of the party’s parliamentary faction.

The outcome appeared to catch many by surprise, including Simonyan himself, who had repeatedly expressed his wish to remain in office and repeated it at his Thursday briefing.

‘I wanted to continue [serving as parliamentary speaker] because, as the longest-serving speaker in Armenia’s history to have completed a full term, I believe my five years of work should have continued. But there is also the party and its board, and I have always said that I will act in accordance with whatever decision the board makes’, Simonyan said.

Despite failing to secure the nomination, Simonyan insisted he was not disappointed by the outcome and denied that his decision not to serve in the new parliament stemmed from feeling slighted by the party’s decision. He added that he had discussed his decision not to go to parliament with Pashinyan and the party before making his announcement.

Simonyan, 46, is one of Civil Contract’s founding members. Before entering parliament in 2018, he served on the Yerevan City Council as a member of the Way Out alliance. Following the 2018 snap elections, he became deputy speaker before replacing Ararat Mirzoyan as parliamentary speaker after the 2021 elections, when Mirzoyan was appointed foreign minister.

Unlike his previous statements expressing his wish to stay on as speaker, on Thursday Simonyan said he now wanted to rest.

‘This has been a difficult year for me professionally. Let’s not forget that this was a post-war parliament — one that went through many challenges and extremely difficult circumstances. The work that I carried out together with my colleagues was genuinely very hard. I really want to get some rest’, Simonyan said.

He added that he also hoped to finally sort out his personal life. The father of three divorced recently and publicly confirmed his relationship with model and actress Anelya Gubryan before announcing their engagement in February.

His tenure coincided with one of the most turbulent periods in Armenia’s modern history.

The parliament elected after the 2021 snap elections came to power following the political crisis triggered by Armenia’s defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. During the five-year parliamentary term, Armenia and Azerbaijan recognised each other’s territorial integrity, including Nagorno-Karabakh, as part of Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan launched attacks on Armenian territory in 2021 and 2022 and occupied parts of the country.

The legislature also served during Azerbaijan’s almost year-long blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh and its final military offensive in September 2023, which forced the region’s entire Armenian population of more than 100,000 people to flee.

It was also under this parliament that Armenia and Azerbaijan initialled a peace treaty in August 2025, which remains unsigned, and agreed on the Trump Route connecting mainland Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenian territory.

Simonyan’s controversies: spitting, curses, and more

Throughout his tenure, Simonyan became known for his sharp rhetoric, particularly in his responses to Russia, while also drawing criticism over restrictions imposed on journalists inside parliament that limited reporters’ access to MPs and senior officials.

Simonyan also spearheaded legislation tripling financial compensation for defamation and insults.

His time as speaker was also marked by several high-profile controversies.

In April 2023, Simonyan spat at Garen Megerdichian, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, in central Yerevan, after Megerdichian called him a ‘traitor’. Megerdichian alleged that Simonyan’s bodyguards restrained him before the speaker spat in his face.

After facing calls to resign, Simonyan apologised to Armenian society, though not to Megerdichian.

‘I’m sorry I got out of line’, Simonyan said. ‘Indeed, democracy implies that an official must and can be criticised, and why not? Provocations could also take place. We must not give in to them’.

However, that was not the last time he gave in to what he called provocation.

The most recent incident occurred in March, when an opposition activist was detained following an exchange of sexually explicit insults with Simonyan.

He also drew criticism after being photographed holidaying on the Greek island of Mykonos alongside his then-wife, Civil Contract MPs Eduard Aghajanyan and Hrachya Hakobyan — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s brother-in-law — as well as Vigen Badalyan, founder of the Vivaro betting company.

Simonyan later declined to say whether Badalyan had paid for the trip. However, what appeared to be controversial collaborations with Badalyan continued.

Separately, a coalition of Armenian election-monitoring organisations, Independent Observer, alleged that Baladyan’s Fast Bank financed pre-election concerts affiliated with Civil Contract in violation of Armenia’s campaign finance regulations ahead of the June vote.

Not the first rejection, and a yet unknown future

Before becoming parliamentary speaker in 2021, Simonyan had also hoped to become Civil Contract’s candidate for Yerevan mayor after the 2018 Velvet Revolution that brought Pashinyan to power. Instead, the party backed comedian and revolution supporter Hayk Marutyan, whose relationship with Civil Contract later deteriorated before he was eventually removed from office in February 2024.

During this year’s parliamentary election campaign, Simonyan remained one of Pashinyan’s closest allies, accompanying him aboard what party members dubbed the ‘happy bus’, with which they travelled across Armenia for the campaign. These bus videos of the pair eating together and travelling across the country went viral and drew criticism from the opposition.

Despite losing out to Rubinyan, Simonyan said he believed his longtime colleague and ‘friend’ was the right choice to succeed him and wished him success.

Rubinyan, who has served as Armenia’s special envoy for the new round of normalisation process with Turkey since 2022, is expected to relinquish that role if elected parliamentary speaker. Speaking separately, he said no successor had yet been selected.

During the press briefing, Simonyan repeatedly rejected suggestions that the decision reflected a falling out with either Civil Contract or Pashinyan.

He insisted he had not viewed the outcome as a punishment, instead noted that he maintained good relations with all board members and suggested he would instead look for faults ‘within himself’. Simonyan added that he had received no explanation from the party as to why he was not selected.

Responding to speculations that the board’s decision could have been conditioned by Pashinyan viewing him as a political rival, Simonyan laughed off the suggestion.

‘Are you crazy?’, he said, adding that he had no such ambitions.

Instead, he elaborated that his political principle had always been to stand ‘next to Nikol Pashinyan, half a step back; whenever he needed me, he would turn back and see me’.

‘I am in politics only within the framework of the Civil Contract party. I do not see myself in political processes without Nikol Pashinyan’, Simonyan said.

At the same time, he said he had not yet discussed his future role with Pashinyan and dismissed speculation that he could become Armenia’s next president.

‘I assume that, at some stage and in some place, I will continue to be useful to our country and to our party’, Simonyan said.

His departure is not the only senior personnel change within the Civil Contract.

Deputy Speaker Hakob Arshakyan also announced ahead of the elections that he would not seek a place on the party’s electoral list, saying he intended to move into the private sector after holding a series of senior government and parliamentary posts since the party came to power in 2018.

Asked about his faults committed as a speaker, he responded he wished to be ‘less emotional’.

Pashinyan says he did not expect Simonyan’s departure

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Pashinyan in turn said he had not anticipated that Simonyan would leave parliament altogether.

‘Naturally, I did not plan in advance that Mr Simonyan would no longer be the Speaker of the National Assembly or a member of parliament. This is a new situation. We will discuss it and understand what comes next’, Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan had earlier denied any personal disagreements with Simonyan following the party board’s decision and stressed that it was important for Civil Contract to retain former officeholders within its ranks, describing them as ‘political assets’.

Following his farewell press briefing, Simonyan personally bid farewell to parliamentary staff. Later that day, he met President Vahagn Khachaturyan, thanking him ‘for our effective cooperation during this period’ and wishing him success in his future work.

On Friday, Civil Contract members also bid farewell to both Simonyan and Arshakyan.

‘We made history together, and I am sincerely very proud of that. I am proud that we worked together, and proud that we went through those difficult times together’, Simonyan said in his farewell speech.

He also asked for forgiveness of those to whom he had ‘been unfair to’.