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Akbar Novruz

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Armenia is once again entering election season in a familiar mood: fragmented and quietly uncertain about its own direction. They have been here before. The billboards, the rallies, the familiar faces making familiar promises, and underneath it all, that particular brand of South Caucasian political anxiety that never quite settles. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for 7 June 2026, and while the names at the top of the ballot may be known quantities, the atmosphere surrounding them feels newer and considerably more combustible than in previous cycles.

Robert Kocharyan is running again. Armenia's second president, a granite-faced survivor of the first Karabakh war, has been nominated as the opposition's candidate for prime minister by the 'Hayastan' bloc. For anyone who has followed Armenian politics over the past decade, this is not a surprise.

But his return deserves more than a shrug, let us be cohesive.

This man, who represents an entire political era, one that Pashinyan's 2018 velvet revolution was expressly designed to bury. Kocharyan has declared that Pashinyan has "no chance of staying in power," arguing that while the prime minister retains some influence over part of the electorate, his support has significantly weakened and his ratings are in decline. Whether that assessment reflects genuine political intelligence or opposition wishful thinking is, for now, an open question.

Current Prime Minister Pashinyan enters this election in a position that defies easy characterisation. He is neither weakened enough to be written off nor secure enough to be comfortable. His Civil Contract party retains a structural advantage in a fragmented political landscape, but the atmosphere surrounding his government has grown noticeably more fraught. As a result of the intense negotiations post Patriotic War (Second Karabakh War), he accepted reality, abandoned his territorial claims, and sought to improve relations with neighboring countries. This effort culminated in the signing of a trilateral joint statement among Azerbaijan, the United States, and Armenia on August 8, 2025. It has been showing great improvement ever since, as Azerbaijan-Armenia relations are on a positive outlook. Diplomatic engagements, trade exchanges, etc - all of this progress has been published thoroughly.

Now, I will explain why the point I mentioned here is important later in the article. For now, let's examine the situation leading up to these turbulent processes.

The latest polling data is troubling for the incumbent: in one survey, Pashinyan registered only 17.3 per cent support, with a staggering 62 per cent of respondents either disillusioned with both government and opposition, or simply undecided. That figure points less to an opposition surge than to a profound crisis of political confidence, a vacuum that multiple challengers are now scrambling to fill.

Of all the fault lines that have opened up in the pre-election period, none carries more symbolic weight than the deterioration of relations between Pashinyan's government and the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The confrontation escalated dramatically in the summer of 2025. Pashinyan accused church officials of a coup plot in a dispute that saw both sides trade extraordinary accusations. He declared that the Church's headquarters at Holy Etchmiadzin had been "taken over by an anti-Christian, immoral, antinational and antistate group", and pledged personally to lead its "liberation."

On at least two occasions, Pashinyan dispatched hundreds of police officers and undercover agents in civilian clothing onto the sacred grounds of Etchmiadzin.

He had accused Catholicos Karekin II of fathering a child, a claim made without evidence, and on Christmas Day 2026, called for a public procession in support of church reform, delivering a fiery address declaring that the Church's leadership was "operating with a sectarian mindset."

The government's tactics have extended to the personal and the prurient. Intimate footage allegedly depicting a senior archbishop was leaked, and a government-affiliated website published a photograph of a bishop in an allegedly intoxicated, partially undressed state. Authorities also dissolved the broadcasting company behind the Church-founded Shoghakat TV.

Since June, Pashinyan has sought to depose the Catholicos and replace him with a more compliant clergyman, employing what critics describe as "divide and rule" tactics, cultivating a small faction of dissident clergy while attempting to isolate the Church's traditional leadership. The Church's Supreme Council condemned the campaign as a "disgraceful anti-church" operation.

Some observers believe the battle with the church leadership is directly tied to electoral calculations, given that senior clergy are widely perceived to be aligned with the political opposition. One recent survey found the Church to be the second most trusted institution in Armenia after the armed forces, with 39 per cent of respondents expressing satisfaction with it. Picking a fight with an institution that commands that level of public confidence, in the weeks before an election, is a gamble of considerable audacity.

Risky period, but seems that the crowd, as far as we can see from kilometres away, has some sort of support for the current Premier.

Old friends of the church return - Who are the opposition against Pashinyan?

Although Kocharyan has remained formally outside frontline politics for years, he has never fully disappeared from Armenia’s political landscape. Possessing long-standing networks within state institutions and society, he has retained a controversial but recognizable presence, particularly since the 2018 Velvet Revolution.

Kocharyan will draw crowds. He always does. But the opposition landscape he nominally leads is fractured in ways that may ultimately benefit the incumbent. Even within his own Hayastan bloc, his leadership appears to be a source of division. Since 2021, the bloc has not participated in any local elections, not in Yerevan, not in Gyumri. It also stayed out of the mass opposition movement known as the "Sacred Struggle." At present, 'Hayastan' functions primarily as a parliamentary faction, lacking the institutional structure required for a serious national campaign.

The more intriguing new entrant is Samvel Karapetyan, a Russian-Armenian billionaire who owns the Electric Networks of Armenia and whose arrest on unspecified charges generated an immediate political backlash. Some 64.4 per cent of respondents opposed his detention, and 71 per cent considered him a political prisoner, figures that transformed a businessman into a cause. His "Our Way" movement has since nominated him as its candidate for prime minister, though his dual citizenship makes him personally ineligible for the role under current law.

Meanwhile, Gagik Tsarukyan's Prosperous Armenia party and the Mother Armenia party have announced a joint run, further crowding a field that already includes the Democratic Alternative party and residual forces associated with former president Serzh Sargsyan. It is a collection of competing grievances, each drawing from the same pool of dissatisfied voters without offering a coherent governing vision.

The polling data tells a sobering story for all sides. Support for Kocharyan and the parties aligned with him stands at around 7 per cent in recent surveys; Sargsyan-linked forces register barely 1 per cent.

Pashinyan's 17 per cent is hardly commanding, but it remains the largest single bloc in a field where most voters have not yet decided who, if anyone, deserves their support.

Local elections have offered early warning signs. In Gyumri, Armenia's second-largest city, and in Parakar, one of Yerevan's largest communities, opposition candidates defeated the ruling party, suggesting that trust in Civil Contract has meaningfully eroded beyond the capital.

Peace, and those who would complicate it

Now, let us get back to the most sensitive aforementioned topic - peace in the Caucasus. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been moving, haltingly, toward a peace agreement. Pashinyan has staked considerable political capital on this trajectory, framing it as pragmatic statecraft.

Kocharyan's position, as ever, is nuanced but pointed. He has not ruled out peace but insists on what he terms "real security guarantees" and a stronger military posture before any agreement is finalised.

Kocharyan’s political persona was built on deceit, the illusion of eternal occupation, the glorification of aggression, and the suppression of truth. He has been having real hard time trying to understand the value of peace, cooperation, or long-term vision for over 30 years. He could not foresee that one day his own people would become the victims of the same lies he once fed them. His dismissive tone toward regional connectivity projects, particularly the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), has shown his inability to grasp modern geopolitics. He claimed that this “has zero benefits for Armenia.”

His critics argue this is a formula for indefinite delay dressed as prudence. His supporters argue it is the only responsible position for a country that has already paid an enormous price for arrangements that did not hold.

Alas, who is (maybe should be) more comfortable as the elections approach?

Is the opposition comfortable? Not remotely. It is energised by genuine public anger but hobbled by fragmentation, weak institutional structures, and the inconvenient fact that its most prominent figures carry considerable political baggage of their own.

Is Pashinyan comfortable? Equally not. Even his relatable, publicly close persona, we see on his comforting social media accounts, a prime minister who polls at 17 per cent, who has dispatched police to a cathedral, who has presided over the arrest of clergy, satirists, and who faces an Electoral Code challenge over the independence of observers, does not look like a leader governing from a position of confidence. The only Armenian premier who carries the title of 'peace proggresser' might have to do more than that to grasp the situation.

The result, whatever it may be, will not simply decide a government. It will shape the trajectory of a state still navigating the difficult space between past conflict and an uncertain peace.