The June parliamentary elections in Armenia were marked by unprecedented international attention and engagement. These were the first elections in Armenia’s independent history to have a significant geopolitical component: all the international actors involved in the South Caucasus had their preferred parties and candidates, while the main contenders also had clear geopolitical preferences. While Russia actively spread disinformation against Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party, explicitly voiced its support for the main opposition party, and, in the latter stages of the electoral campaign, resorted to economic pressure, the US and the EU explicitly and implicitly signalled their support for the ruling party and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The geopoliticisation of Armenia’s political process has contributed to the emergence of black-and-white, binary narratives that present the country’s domestic politics through the prism of a pro-democratic government versus an anti-democratic opposition. As with other overly simplified binary narratives, this one is also quite far from reality.

While the current parliamentary opposition either has direct ties to Armenia’s past non-democratic governments or has publicly promoted narratives that are not in line with democratic governance — such as continuously expressing admiration for the Ivanishvili governance model in Georgia — it has already become clear that categorising Armenia’s ruling party as pro-democratic is equally far from reality.

A personalist and populist style of governance

The 2018 Velvet Revolution was a rare instance of peaceful democratic change through mass public participation. The post-revolutionary period was marked by exalted optimism and enthusiasm about the country’s democratic future. The early failures to undertake comprehensive reforms in the immediate aftermath of the revolution were largely brushed off at the time as the result of the new government’s lack of experience, as well as unfavourable external factors and spoilers. However, even during this period, when Pashinyan and his team still enjoyed astronomical levels of public support and had little need to exploit state resources for their political goals, there were already early signs of problems that would become evident several years later.

The most obvious of these signs was not simply the failure to institutionalise the decision-making process and build effective institutions — something that could still be explained by time constraints and other external variables — but a broader disdain for institutions and a clear penchant for a personalist and populist style of governance. This manifested itself in decisions such as Pashinyan calling on his supporters to physically blockade the entrances to courts in an attempt to transform the judicial system by bypassing institutional mechanisms. Although at the time this could be interpreted as an effort to consolidate power in a volatile post-revolutionary period and confront the entrenched elites of the old guard, it later became evident that these patterns of behaviour were part of deeper problems with the ruling party’s approach to governance that would become increasingly entrenched after a major decline in its popularity.

Armenia’s devastating defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War became a catalyst for the acceleration of anti-democratic trends. After surviving an extremely volatile post-war period characterised by mob riots, opposition-led waves of protests, and even the military’s involvement in the political process, and after winning an unexpected landslide in the 2021 snap parliamentary elections, the ruling party’s main priority became political survival. The accelerated post-war polarisation, driven by the outcomes of the war, made the possibility of normal democratic cycles — losing elections, becoming opposition, and potentially returning to power — far less likely. The post-war rhetoric of major opposition actors suggested that a loss of power could result not only in political consequences but also in legal and other repercussions for the ruling party, a perception that continues to shape the logic of Armenia’s political process to this day.

Following the snap parliamentary elections, the government’s prioritisation of political survival induced Pashinyan and his allies to consolidate power by taking control of independent institutions, including the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Judicial Council, by stacking them with loyalists, ruling-party members, and former cabinet ministers, as well as by increasing the use of law-enforcement institutions for political purposes.

In the media sphere, instead of pursuing meaningful reform, Civil Contract began replicating a model previously created by the opposition. Multiple media outlets have been established by the ruling party in recent years that are involved in outright propaganda and polarised messaging. These media actors are also among the most active purveyors of hate speech against vulnerable groups, such as Nagorno-Karabakh refugees. The most concerning development, however, has been the retransformation of Armenia’s Public Television, which, after the Velvet Revolution, was promised to be reformed, into a powerful information tool in the hands of the government. A recent analysis by Media.am shows that in the months preceding the start of the official election campaign, Public Television’s news programme was dominated by favourable coverage of the ruling party.

The end of post-2018 democratic optimism

After creating this infrastructure, Pashinyan and his party were not shy about employing it to pursue their political goals domestically. The years preceding the 2026 parliamentary elections were marked by the growing use of selective justice by the government to suppress political opponents and advance its agenda. This process intensified in the year before the elections, starting with Pashinyan’s confrontation with the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church and escalating into wider measures against opposition-aligned actors.

This growing political polarisation has helped the ruling party frame and sell these processes within a narrative of combating foreign interference and protecting the country’s sovereignty. Under the guise of countering Russian influence, multiple constitutional boundaries and norms of democratic governance have been crossed over the past year.

As anticipated, in the absence of any meaningful domestic or international backlash, and with a renewed mandate, these practices and trends have only intensified following the ruling party’s victory in the parliamentary elections. Two months have passed since election day, but there have already been several serious anti-democratic moves that further endanger the country’s prospects for democratic consolidation.

The first was the decision by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) not to organise repeat voting in three polling stations where the results had been annulled after election day. This decision was clearly at odds with Armenia’s Electoral Code, as it affected the composition of the new parliament. As a result of this ruling, the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party was effectively barred from entering parliament, while the ruling party secured a three-fifths majority. Although the CEC ruling did not affect the broader outcome of the election, it nevertheless represented another red line crossed by the government, as it was the first major step directed against the integrity of the electoral process since the 2018 Revolution. Concerns about the politicisation of the CEC had already been raised in 2022, when Vahagn Hovakimyan, a Civil Contract MP, was elected as its head.

Apart from this decision, the ruling party also moved quickly to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Armenian citizens. The outgoing parliament hastily introduced changes to the Electoral Code, making the right to vote conditional on a period of actual residence in Armenia. Under the new rules, citizens can vote only if they have spent at least 366 days physically present in Armenia during the 730 days preceding an election.

There is a broad consensus within Armenia’s civil society and expert community that this amendment is unconstitutional, as the constitution clearly defines who can and cannot vote. Once again, the ruling party attempted to justify these changes by citing the need to counter Russian interference, amidst media reports about tens of thousands of people being brought from Russia to vote against the ruling party in the parliamentary elections. However, an investigation by the independent outlet Infocom, citing official data from the National Security Service, found no evidence to substantiate claims of organised voter transportation from Russia. It found that only 3,358 more Armenian citizens arrived from Russia between 1 May and 7 June than during the same period in 2025.

The third worrying development is the criminal case and seizure of properties and businesses belonging to opposition leader and tycoon Gagik Tsarukyan. The issue is not the legality of the charges, but the selective and politicised application of justice. While Tsarukyan remained politically passive, his relations with the authorities improved; as he re-engaged politically, he once again came under criminal investigation. The timing is particularly concerning given Pashinyan’s public threats against opposition leaders following the elections, raising serious questions about the independence of law enforcement and the use of state institutions for political purposes.

These worrying developments, which intensified in the year before the elections and continued afterwards, mark the transformation of the political group that spearheaded the peaceful pro-democratic revolution of 2018 into a typical post-Soviet ruling party, relying on administrative resources and low-intensity repression. They also constitute a significant episode of democratic backsliding that is difficult to deny when these processes are examined without bias.

The ruling party’s authoritarian tendencies are also exacerbated by the absence of a credible pro-democratic alternative to it. The current composition of parliament creates an extremely fertile ground for the further deepening of polarisation and the elimination of democratic space. One of the most damning outcomes of the 2026 elections was the fact that, apart from these major resource-dependent political groups, not a single party came close to overcoming the parliamentary threshold.

The period of post-2018 democratic optimism is effectively over, and dealing with this new reality requires acknowledgement of that fact. The narratives about Armenia’s domestic politics that dominate in the West — presenting the country as a contest between pro-democratic and anti-democratic forces — have very little to do with the actual situation on the ground. The reality is much more complicated, with the ruling party becoming increasingly emboldened to use modes of non-democratic governance and justify them by invoking larger national goals, while the parliamentary opposition has regularly employed anti-democratic narratives and approaches in its political activity.

This acknowledgement by Armenia’s international partners could help facilitate a more complex approach towards the country. Armenia is undergoing a challenging process of diversifying its foreign policy, security, and economy while facing growing pressure from Russia. Supporting Armenia in this process is essential and should continue. However, helping the country build its resilience should not automatically mean supporting everything its ruling party does domestically. Moreover, safeguarding Armenia’s democratic trajectory is an important pillar of protecting the country from external coercion and manipulation.

In that sense, a reevaluation of the Western approach is necessary, including more vocal advocacy by Western governments and institutions for the preservation of democratic norms and practices in Armenia. Such a shift is essential if Western policy is genuinely intended to support Armenia’s democratic development rather than being driven primarily by geopolitical considerations.