Armenia’s Pashinyan wins election, observers allege Russian interference

Frangulian Shushan
By Lucy Papachristou
Wed, June 10, 2026 at 5:25 AM PDT
4 min read

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(In June 8 story, corrects misattribution of quote in paragraphs 5-6)

By Lucy Papachristou

YEREVAN, June 8 (Reuters) – Armenia’s governing Civil Contract party won an election seen as a test of its handling of a peace deal with Azerbaijan and its growing turn to the West, despite what international ‌election observers called blatant interference and pressure by Russia.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s party won 49.8% of votes with all polling stations counted from Sunday’s ballot, ‌enough to secure a parliamentary majority under Armenia’s electoral system, the Central Election Commission (CEC) said on Monday.

The results, based on a strong turnout of nearly 59%, also showed a better-than-expected tally for the two main pro-Russian opposition groups, which won a combined 31% of votes and are set to enter parliament.

International election monitors said the run-up to voting was marked by efforts by traditional patron Russia to influence the outcome.

“Russia exercised unprecedented pressure, using public threats and trade measures, trying to substantially alter the results of the election,” said Nathalie Loiseau, a member of European Parliament and the head of the EP observer delegation.

“As members of the European Parliament, we strongly condemn this blatant interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state.”

Russia accused the West ‌of interfering in the vote and joined Armenia’s opposition in ⁠alleging election violations.

“There is clearly broad demand within Armenian society for the steady development of Russian-Armenian ties,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Sunday’s vote was Armenia’s first parliamentary election since a 2023 war in which Azerbaijan retook Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway territory that had ⁠an ethnic Armenian population.

Pashinyan’s victory will boost his efforts to diversify Armenia’s allies and trading partners away from Russia and more towards Western countries. Key to that effort is securing a peace deal with Azerbaijan and normalising relations with Azerbaijan’s ally Turkey.

PASHINYAN HAILS VICTORY, OPPOSITION CRIES FOUL

Pashinyan hailed a “historic victory” and pledged to continue building ties with both the West and Russia, while some opposition groups cried foul.

“The Armenian people voted for regional prosperity and cooperation and I hope this will draw a positive response from Turkey and Azerbaijan,” he said.

European ‌Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Pashinyan and said Armenia could count on European support, saying on X: “We deeply value our partnership with a democratic Armenia that is drawing ever closer to Europe.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also congratulated Pashinyan, saying in a social media post that the U.S. stands with him in pursuit of peace. “We look forward to working together to deliver peace, stability, and prosperity to the South Caucasus and beyond,” Rubio said.

Pashinyan has not secured the two-thirds majority in parliament needed to call a constitutional referendum demanded as part of a peace deal by Azerbaijan and to re-open the border and restart trade with Turkey.

Azerbaijan wants Armenia to amend its ‌constitution to remove what it says is an implicit claim on Nagorno-Karabakh.

Zaur Shiriyev, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said it was unclear whether Azerbaijan would want to move forward with the peace process if Armenia failed to call a referendum on amending its constitution.

“The (Armenian) government would then face a very difficult domestic situation,” Shiriyev said. “Cooperation with the opposition on such a sensitive issue is ‌almost impossible.”

Opposition alliances Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance won 23.2% and 9.9% of the vote respectively, the CEC said. A fourth party, Prosperous Armenia, failed to meet the 4% threshold to enter parliament.

Election observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said voting went smoothly in most areas, but that prosecutions of opposition figures before the vote contributed to perceptions of selective justice.

Arrests before the election targeted the opposition, including parliamentary candidates for Strong Armenia. Party founder Samvel Karapetyan, ‌who is under house arrest and campaigned on close ties with Moscow, said over 700 people associated with the group had been detained.

The Armenia Alliance, led by former pro-Russian president Robert Kocharyan, said Pashinyan’s early victory claim constituted “pressure on the CEC and usurpation of power,” Russian news agency Interfax reported.

(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Kirsten Donovan and Timothy Heritage)

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Armenia Votes to Shun Russia

Anna Tamamian
Pashinyan’s victory leaves the Kremlin with the difficult choice of confrontation or something more pragmatic.
a:hover]:text-red” st1yle=”box-sizing:border-box;border-width:0px;border-style:solid;border-color:currentcolor;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:2rem”>By Emil Avdaliani
June 9, 2026

The parliamentary elections in Armenia ended in the incumbent prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and his party Civil Contract’s victory. Winning nearly 50% of the vote on an increased turnout, the ruling party will hold 64 seats in the 105-member National Assembly.

This is enough to form a government, but it fell short of the seats needed to reshape the country’s constitution. This is important because Azerbaijan has repeatedly said that changing the constitution was a key condition for finalizing a comprehensive peace agreement with Armenia, in particular, the reference made to the conquered enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. It also sends a clear message to the Kremlin, which sought to influence the result and failed. The government’s efforts at re-election had also received clear backing from the US.

Out of a total of 16 political parties and two electoral alliances that participated in the election, the race was dominated by three principal groups: Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, the Strong Armenia bloc headed by Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, and former president Robert Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance.

To be sure, Pashinyan is not a highly popular figure, but his success is reasonably easily explained. First, the opposition lacked a unifying national figure capable of appealing to a broad cross-section of society. The opposition figures were cast as representatives of old, corrupt, and largely pro-Russian parties. They also were accused of wanting to drag Armenia into a new confrontation with Azerbaijan — a scenario that would further weaken Yerevan, given the glaring difference in military capabilities between the two sides.

The elections attracted widespread interest beyond the country’s borders. Russia’s leaders pressured Armenia to make a clear decision on whether the country will choose the EU or remain within the Russian-run Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). It also barred some Armenian exports and threatened to block Armenians from working in Russia.

There were other efforts to sway the vote. A May open-source investigation documented one alleged plan. Beyond such covert work, prominent advocates gave the opposition a Western face. In 2025, Robert Amsterdam, the lawyer representing jailed Samvel Karapetyan, and previously retained by Vadym Novynskyi, the sanctioned oligarch who is regarded as a financier of the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church, took Karapetyan’s case onto Tucker Carlson’s show, casting Pashinyan as an enemy of Christianity.

The “divorce” initially went smoothly, with Moscow rarely protesting openly or in strict terms. But as the elections neared, the prospects of a radical break emerged with Russian officials stating that Armenia is no longer considered a trusted ally and warning Moscow would take drastic measures to rein in its (official but wayward) South Caucasus ally.

In contrast, Western capitals signaled clear support for Pashinyan. In May, Yerevan hosted two major gatherings involving European leaders, and just before the elections, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio paid a short visit to the Armenian capital to sign several agreements, including a strengthening of Washington’s engagement in the TRIPP road route from Azerbaijan to its exclave in Nakhchivan that runs through Armenia.

Thus, it was clear from the very beginning that the vote would function as a de facto referendum on Armenia’s geopolitical orientation: whether the country would continue deepening ties with the European Union and the United States, or it would be drawn back into Russia’s strategic orbit.

The electoral success gives Pashinyan sufficient political space to continue the strategic course he has pursued since 2023, and that Moscow fears will take Armenia further away from Russia. This is particularly true in foreign policy.

Since the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, Armenia has sought to diversify its external partnerships and reduce its near-total reliance on Russia. Over the past two years, Yerevan has expanded ties with a range of European and Asian states, seeking to build a network of strategic relationships that can partially compensate for Russia’s intermittent arms supplies and Armenia’s excessive economic dependence on Moscow.

Thus, Armenia’s drift from Russia is real, and for the West, Pashinyan’s victory is an opening to forge closer links, and perhaps even further widen the wedge between Yerevan and Moscow. For the latter, Pashinyan’s re-election is a geopolitical challenge because it forces the Kremlin to reassess its approach not only toward Armenia but toward the South Caucasus as a whole.

Though Russia still remains powerful, its ability to project influence in the region has notably declined since the Ukraine war began. As a result, Moscow now enjoys stable relations with none of the three South Caucasus countries.

This also coincides with the growing influence of other regional powers. Turkey has been pushing for a normalization of ties with Yerevan. The US is engaging each of the regional countries, while China and the wealthy Gulf Arab states are investing in transport and data links in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.

Yerevan, nevertheless, is unlikely to seek a complete break with Moscow. Russia retains considerable economic and security influence. Whether Russia will accept this is another matter — its dream of holding sway in what it likes to term the near-abroad is undiminished.

Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the history of the Silk Roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.

Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.




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Russia recycles its Moldova script to brand Armenia’s election illegitimate, I

Jhanna Virabian
Hours after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract took 49.81%, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged “unprecedented Western pressure”—and Rosrybolovstvo threatened fresh import bans.
BYDANIEL THOMAS
10/06/2026
3 MINUTE READ
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Prime Minister of Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan (L) and President of Russia Vladimir Putin (R) in 2018. Source: kremlin.ru

Russia recycles its Moldova script to brand Armenia’s election illegitimate, ISW says

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Russia began delegitimizing Armenia’s election within hours of Nikol Pashinyan’s 8 June 2026 victory. The Institute for the Study of War said so in its 9 June assessment. ISW identified three coordinated false narratives advanced by Russian government officials and pro-Kremlin commentators since the result.

One narrative claims Pashinyan “lost” because Civil Contract took less than 50% of the vote. A second says the election unfolded under Western pressure and domestic opposition suppression. A third alleges mass electoral fraud. ISW wrote that Moscow “continues spreading false narratives of stolen elections in post-Soviet states when those results do not favor Russian interests.”

The narratives ISW found in Armenia’s election

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova led Moscow’s reaction to Armenia’s election on 8 June. She alleged the vote unfolded under “unprecedented pressure on the opposition and interference from the West, primarily the EU.” Zakharova said Civil Contract “did not receive a monopoly on power.” The campaign featured “harsh repression” of opposition activists and attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church, The Armenian Mirror-Spectator reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to congratulate Pashinyan. He told reporters Moscow is “waiting for the final results” and “recording numerous irregularities.” The Central Election Commission’s final tally put Civil Contract at 49.81%—727,160 votes. That left Samvel Karapetyan’s pro-Russian “Strong Armenia” a distant second at 23.29%, Al Jazeera reported. Turnout topped 58%.

The Moldova precedent ISW cites

ISW pointed to Maia Sandu’s 2024 Moldovan presidential victory as the direct precedent. The think tank wrote that Moscow had alleged “election fraud, suppression of opposition, and ‘illegitimate’ results.” The Kremlin suggested “Sandu’s victory materialized only after counting Western diaspora ballots,” ISW added.

Sandu’s Party of Action and Solidarity went on to win 50.14% in the September 2025 parliamentary vote anyway. Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said the Kremlin spent approximately €200 million on the 2024 cycle. That equals nearly 1% of Moldova’s GDP, Reuters reported.

Economic coercion runs alongside the narrative

ISW also flagged a parallel economic threat. On 8 June, the head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, Ilya Shestakov, warned at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. He vowed “further steps will certainly follow” against Armenian exports if “veterinary risks” arise, Kyiv Post reported.

The warning compounded restrictions imposed since May on Armenian mineral water, alcohol, flowers, fruits, vegetables, and fish. ISW described the move as economic punishment for Armenia “distancing itself from Russia.” That distancing is precisely what Armenia’s election ratified — Pashinyan’s government has reduced participation in the Russia-led CSTO and reoriented Civil Contract’s policies toward the EU.Related Posts

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What TRIPP actually commits

Garo Vardanian
Kevork HagopjianJune 10, 2026Last Updated: June 10, 2026

1 4 minutes read
 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan (left) with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) speak to the press after announcing the release of the TRIPP Implementation Framework in Washington on Jan. 13, 2026. (Photo: Armenian MFA)

The TRIPP Framework Agreement is seven pages long. It was signed days before the elections in Armenia. Both facts justify careful reading. What does Armenia actually receive under the TRIPP Framework Agreement that is legally guaranteed, enforceable and not contingent on future political developments outside its control? That question deserves a precise answer.

Start with the ownership architecture. Under Article 3(2), the TRIPP Development Company (TDC) will be controlled 74% by TDC US, a Delaware-incorporated subsidiary of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Armenia holds 26%. Armenia contributes sovereign territory, transit corridors, land acquisition obligations at its own financial cost, regulatory facilitation and political risk exposure.

What does the U.S. side guarantee in return? Article 5(6) answers plainly: The United States “intends to provide for and/or assist in securing financing for TRIPP Projects, subject to the availability of funds.” An intent subject to fund availability is not a commitment. It is an aspiration dressed in treaty language.

Even more troubling is the imbalance between binding and nonbinding obligations. Armenia “shall,” “agrees” and “confirms”: It must facilitate legislation, permits, regulatory processes, land acquisition, concessions, tax exemptions, and private border-service arrangements. By contrast, the U.S. often merely “intends” or “expects,” including with respect to financing, authorization and implementation. This is not a technical drafting issue. It is the legal core of the problem: Armenia assumes concrete sovereign obligations, while many anticipated benefits remain conditional, future-oriented and politically dependent.

In addition, the sovereignty framing throughout the agreement is emphatic but functionally hollow. Armenia “retains full sovereignty” over TRIPP implementation areas, the document repeats. And yet Article 6(2) grants the TDC exclusive land use and development rights for an initial 49-year term, extendable to 99 years, fully assignable to Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) populated by concessionaires, contractors and operators of the TDC’s choosing. Article 4(3) explicitly empowers the TDC to select those third parties. Armenia has no enforceable veto. In other words, the flag stays Armenian, but operational control does not.

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Article 5(5) compounds this. It provides that in any conflict with Armenian law, this agreement applies, consistent with the Constitution. This is not a standard treaty supremacy clause. Combined with Article 3(6), which commits Armenia to adopt “deviations” from its own legislation on joint-stock companies, procurement, and public-private partnerships, it creates a tailor-made legal regime for TRIPP that overrides ordinary Armenian statutory protections on transparency, competition, and anti-corruption oversight. Future parliaments will inherit these obligations on a 99-year horizon.

Armenia assumes concrete sovereign obligations, while many anticipated benefits remain conditional, future-oriented and politically dependent.

Several additional provisions compound the asymmetry. Article 6(1) requires Armenia to expropriate, clear and deliver land within TRIPP implementation areas, including privately held parcels, entirely at its own financial cost, with no reimbursement mechanism and no ceiling on that expropriation liability defined anywhere in the agreement. Article 8(3) commits Armenia to using private operators for customer-facing border services within TRIPP areas, without requiring that those operators meet Armenian national security vetting standards or excluding beneficial ownership by parties whose interests may be adverse to Armenia’s — a significant omission on a frontier of acute strategic sensitivity.

Article 9 establishes comprehensive tax exemptions for the TDC structure — no dividend tax, no capital gains tax, no transfer tax — with no reciprocal fiscal mechanism returning value to the Armenian state beyond its 26% stake, whose actual worth depends entirely on financing commitments the agreement does not guarantee. And while Article 3(7) explicitly protects U.S. ownership of TDC US from third-party acquisition, no equivalent protection prevents adverse third-party participation in Armenian SPVs through subcontracting, financing arrangements or intermediary corporate structures. Furthermore, there is no binding arbitration or dispute resolution mechanism should disputes arise; Article 10 provides only for consultations. Each of these provisions, taken alone, might be negotiable. Taken together, they describe a consistent pattern.

The asymmetry becomes geopolitically stark also when one examines what TRIPP does and does not operationalize. Azerbaijan’s objective, unimpeded connectivity between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan through Armenian territory, is institutionalized through concrete infrastructure rights, concession structures and dedicated governance mechanisms. Armenia’s “reciprocal benefits,” by contrast, appear nowhere as enforceable entitlements. There is no treaty-binding language guaranteeing Armenian transit rights through Azerbaijani territory, no commitment to lift the Turkish-Azerbaijani transportation blockade and no minimum investment threshold that must be met before Armenia’s obligations activate. 

A framework that concretely institutionalizes one party’s primary strategic gain while leaving the other’s dependent on future political goodwill is not an incomplete agreement awaiting implementation. It is a completed agreement that favors one party. The reversion clause, the reserved matters and the sovereignty affirmations are genuine provisions, but they operate within a governance structure where 74% controlling ownership, New York-governed shareholders arrangements and U.S.-selected concessionaires define the practical reality of decision-making. Formal protections that exist inside a structure designed around foreign majority control are not the same as enforceable parity.

Critics will note correctly that Azerbaijan is not a party to this agreement and that demanding enforceable Armenian transit rights through Azerbaijani territory within a U.S.-Armenia bilateral instrument is legally misconceived. That is true, but it sharpens rather than resolves the concern. The Framework Agreement’s own preamble identifies enabling connectivity between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan as a central strategic purpose. Armenia is therefore assuming concrete, binding, 99-year infrastructure obligations whose primary strategic beneficiary is a third party not bound by this instrument.

The tripartite Washington understandings of August 2025, which did involve Azerbaijan, generated political commitments regarding reciprocal Armenian connectivity. Those commitments had not been converted into any binding legal instrument before Armenia signed. The sequence matters: Armenia’s obligations are now treaty-locked; the reciprocal benefits remain politically contingent.

To remain legally objective, it is fair to acknowledge that Armenia has not been negotiating from strength, and no legal critique changes that geopolitical reality. The U.S. government’s development finance backing and returning infrastructure represent real, if long-term, benefits. But strategic vulnerability is not an argument for signing without scrutiny; it is an argument for scrutinizing more carefully. A state with limited leverage cannot afford to discover after ratification that its obligations were binding while its benefits were not. Armenia’s pursuit of connectivity, prosperity and regional integration through TRIPP is legitimate and necessary.

The question this article raises is not whether Armenia should engage; it is whether the current legal architecture of that engagement adequately protects Armenian interests and sovereignty, and whether ratification should proceed before that question is properly addressed. Seven pages have been signed. Ninety-nine years have not yet begun.



Kevork Hagopjian

Dr. Kevork Hagopjian, Esq. is an attorney and human rights advocate with expertise in international law, minority rights, civil litigation, and community engagement. He holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Vienna, along with two LL.M. degrees in Public International Law from SOAS, University of London and U.S. Law from George Mason University as well as an LL.B. from University of Aleppo. His doctoral research led to the publication of a book on “The rights of Armenian minorities in Lebanon and Turkey under National and International law”. In addition to legal practice, he facilitates dialogue and peacebuilding efforts in divided or post-conflict communities. With experience spanning legal, intergovernmental, nonprofit and civil society sectors, Dr Hagopjian remains actively engaged in global conversations on justice, accountability, and human dignity.

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Iran responded to the US strikes with UAVs and missiles

Eduard Nalbandian

During the night, the USA and Iran exchanged blows after the incident involving the American military helicopter.


The US forces attacked the Iranian air defense systems in the Strait of Hormuz.


Official Washington called the attack “precautionary” and expressed hope that it would not interfere with the negotiations.


Iran’s military response was very quick. The IRGC carried out an attack on US military bases in the region with ATS and missiles, including the US Navy headquarters in Bahrain.


The Iranian side also distributed footage of the shooting down of the US MQ-9 Reaper ATS worth 30 million dollars during the night attack on Iran.


Iranologist Vardan Voskanyan




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805 applications for citizenship in Armenia were rejected in 2025

Eduard Nalbandian

During 2025, 805 applications for the granting of citizenship of the Republic of Armenia were rejected, Khachatur Poghosyan, the head of the RA President’s Office, announced this in the National Assembly.


He noted that there are no statistics on whether there are persons forcibly displaced from Artsakh among the 805 or not.


“According to the information I have, such cases are almost excluded, because the Migration and Citizenship Service examines the cases of our compatriots deported from Artsakh in a special mode, in the shortest possible time. In my memory, there is no case of such observations,” Poghosyan emphasized.

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The “Mush” cinema building of Martuni community of Gegharkunik marz will be returned to RA

Ara Felekian

An investigation initiated by the Department of State Interest Protection of the General Prosecutor’s Office revealed that the 1218 square meter building of the “Mush” cinema in the city of Martuni, Gegharkunik Marz, belonging to the Republic of Armenia, the electrical substation with the area of ​​43.7 square meters, together with the 0.272 ha plot of land, were illegally expropriated to an individual for only 4 million 572 thousand drams under the contract signed on August 14, 2006. According to the study, it was recorded that the cadastral value of the property at the time of expropriation was 33 million 246 thousand 992 AMD. that is, the above-mentioned properties were sold at a price many times lower than the cadastral value. Currently, the cadastral value of the property approximated to the market value is 134 million 250 thousand drams.


RA General Prosecutor’s Office informs about this.


According to the data received at the Prosecutor’s Office, the expropriation process did not take into account the fact that on December 2, 2005, the mayor of Martuni, at the request of the city’s population, on behalf of the members of the community’s council of elders, appealed to the RA Prime Minister, who was acting at that time, asking to hand over the city’s only cinema building to the community in order to properly organize cultural life and youth entertainment.


According to the results of the study, criminal proceedings were initiated in the Anti-corruption Committee on the basis of the report about the crime submitted by the Department of Protection of State Interests.


In addition, on March 25, 2025, the State Interests Protection Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office submitted a lawsuit to the Anti-Corruption Court, demanding to invalidate the sales contract signed on August 14, 2006 between the RA Ministry of Culture and Youth Affairs and a natural person.


The claim was based on the fact that the public cinema “Mush” located at 66 Myasnikyan Street, Martuni, Gegharkunik Marz, was sold at a price significantly lower than the market and cadastral values, violating both the property valuation and the legal requirements for the expropriation of state property.


According to the judgment of the anti-corruption court on June 1, 2026, the claim of the General Prosecutor’s Office was satisfied. The contract of expropriation of “Mush” cinema in Martuni, signed between the RA Ministry of Culture and Youth Affairs and the citizen on August 14, 2006, was declared invalid.


After the court decision enters into legal force, the building of the “Mush” cinema with an area of ​​1218 square meters, the electric substation with an area of ​​43.7 square meters and the plot of land of 0.272 ha will be returned to the Republic of Armenia.

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CEC. Recounting is planned in almost all electoral districts of Yerevan

Emil Lazarian

The work of recounting votes continues in the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia. The final results of the voting will be published on June 14. Vahagn Hovakimyan, the chairman of the RA CEC, announced this.


According to him, at the current stage, we are mostly talking about technical errors made during data entry. As the Chairman of the Central Election Commission noted, serious inaccuracies were found in only five of the 2005 election precincts. In those cases, lines were omitted during manual data entry in the protocols, a classic “human factor”.


“I want to say once again to dear journalists and citizens of the Republic of Armenia. in fact, only five of the 2,005 sites had input problems. The records are accurate, but an error occurred when entering the data: lines were left out,” Hovakimyan emphasized. One such incident happened in electoral district No. 27. According to Hovakimyan, the error was related to the fatigue of the employee entering the data. Moreover, the actual protocols of the sites have been preserved and published, so the error is easily detected and corrected. The President of the CEC reminded that the results are called preliminary precisely because they are subject to adjustment and verification. “The preliminary results are the ones that still need to be adjusted. Now a recalculation is being carried out in many precincts.”


According to official data, the CEC received very few properly formulated applications for recounting votes. Such applications were received from the “Prosperous Armenia” party, the “Strong Armenia” alliance and the “Wings of Unity” party.


Many other applications were formulated with irregularities (wrong submission, lack of authority, etc.) and, therefore, were not accepted in the prescribed manner. However, in many cases, the regional election commissions started recounting the votes on their own initiative. The process is particularly active in Yerevan. Recounting is planned in almost all electoral districts of the capital, primarily at the initiative of a candidate from one of the opposition forces, who has expressed such a wish. Recalculation is taking place according to the deadlines set by the law (until Friday at 14:00). Theoretically, any candidate or proxy has the right to request a recount in all the polling stations where he was present at the summary of the results, but this must be done strictly in accordance with the law.

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The committee of the US Congress will vote on the project calling for the release of Armenian prisoners

Lilit Nahapetian

American congressman Brad Sherman proposed demanding Azerbaijan to immediately release all Armenian prisoners. This is reported by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).


In the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he proposed an amendment to the House Diplomatic Service Act (H.R. 9086), which “calls on Azerbaijan to immediately and unconditionally release all Armenian prisoners of war and political prisoners.”


The politician reminded about Azerbaijan’s military aggression in Nagorno-Karabakh and the ethnic cleansing of more than 100 thousand Armenians living there for 2 thousand years. He also pointed out the footage spread on the Internet documenting cases of extrajudicial execution of Armenian prisoners.


“Given all of this, it is extremely important that the United States demand from Baku the immediate release of all captured Armenians,” he stated in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives.


Sherman also noted that the release of the hostages is directly related to the efforts made by US President Donald Trump to establish peace in the South Caucasus.


“As President Trump continues his efforts to ensure lasting peace in the South Caucasus, the release of Armenian prisoners of war and political prisoners would be an important step on that path,” he said.


Republican Brian Mast, chairman of the committee, supported the proposal.


A roll call vote on this amendment is now expected. If accepted, the project will be transferred to the House of Representatives for discussion.


The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) welcomed this decision of the bipartisan commission.


“The illegal detention of Armenian hostages in Azerbaijan is a real crisis of human rights, which requires decisive steps from the Congress. We highly appreciate the commission’s chairman Mast’s support for Sherman’s initiative and the commission’s bipartisan firm position regarding the immediate and unconditional release of the prisoners,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hambaryan.

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Gagik Tsarukyan was interrogated

Arbi Tashjian

PAP Chairman Gagik Tsarukyan was interrogated by the Investigative Committee yesterday. He denied the new accusation against him, calling it groundless. This was reported by his lawyer Emin Khachatryan, NEWS.am writes. 


According to Khachatryan, the criminal proceedings were initiated in 2019, but Gagik Tsarukyan was not aware of the criminal proceedings until yesterday. Yesterday, a criminal prosecution was initiated against Tsarukyan without the consent of the CEC, and the ban on absence was imposed as a preventive measure.


The lawyer emphasized that the prosecutor’s office was obliged to apply to the Central Electoral Commission first, because Gagik Tsarukyan is a deputy candidate, therefore he has immunity.

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