Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia declared victory early Monday in a high-stakes election, overcoming a pressure campaign by Moscow and winning a mandate to move forward on peace talks with neighboring Azerbaijan that President Trump helped broker last year.
The results announced by the central election commission showed that Mr. Pashinyan’s party, Civil Contract, received 49.8 percent of the vote in early results, enough to secure a majority of seats in Parliament based on Armenia’s complex electoral rules.
Sunday’s election was the first time that Armenians had voted nationally since a disputed territory, Nagorno-Karabakh, was seized by Azerbaijan in 2023, a stinging defeat that brought charged emotions to the parliamentary race.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Pashinyan told voters they needed to re-elect him to see through the preliminary peace deal with Azerbaijan that he agreed to in Washington last year. Mr. Pashinyan presented a vision of Armenia at peace for the first time since the Soviet Union’s collapse, emphasizing the security and economic dividends that would bring.
His party also warned that a victory for the opposition would bring back corrupt, authoritarian forces that led Armenia for years before a 2018 civic uprising brought Mr. Pashinyan to power.
A group of pro-Russia opposition parties campaigned against him, blaming him for losing Nagorno-Karabakh and accusing him of making traitorous compromises in negotiations with Azerbaijan. They also noted that Russia was and would remain the No. 1 strategic partner of Armenia, a former Soviet republic, and that the Kremlin would be needed to guarantee any future peace.
The triumph for Mr. Pashinyan capped a bitter election campaign, in which the Armenian authorities arrested members of the opposition on accusations of vote bribery, sedition and financial crimes. The opposition accused Mr. Pashinyan of weaponizing law enforcement to persecute his political opponents and suppress legitimate dissent.
Strong Armenia, a new pro-Russia bloc led by the Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, received 23.3 percent of the vote, making the faction the leading opposing force in Armenia’s new Parliament.
Mr. Karapetyan, who earned much of his fortune in Russia, spent the campaign under house arrest, owing to allegations that he had committed financial crimes and that he had called to overthrow the government. He and his party said they were being persecuted politically.
Because Mr. Karapetyan also holds Russian and Cypriot citizenship, making him ineligible to enter Parliament, his nephew headed up the party ticket.
Another pro-Russia bloc, the Armenia Alliance, received 10 percent of the vote. The bloc is led by Robert Kocharyan, who served as Armenia’s president from 1998 to 2008 and was originally from Nagorno-Karabakh. Prosperous Armenia, the third pro-Russia party, received about 4 percent of the vote in early returns.
Mr. Pashinyan has expanded ties with the United States and the European Union, but he hasn’t advocated a full break with Russia, a treaty ally that remains an indispensable trade and energy partner for Armenia and also retains a military base there.
Russia piled on pressure in support of Mr. Pashinyan’s opponents ahead of the vote, restricting Armenian imports, mounting a disinformation campaign and threatening to cut off cheap oil and gas. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia warned ominously that Armenia was going down the path of Ukraine and called on Mr. Pashinyan to allow pro-Russian forces to have a say in the nation’s politics.
While campaigning, Mr. Pashinyan said he would go to Moscow after the election for talks, signaling that he wants to ease tensions with the Kremlin. His government has sought to balance its pursuit of new foreign policy partners in the West with maintaining the decades-long relationship with Moscow.
The Russian government, however, has made clear that Armenia cannot pursue membership in the European Union while remaining in a customs union with Russia that accords the nation preferential benefits. Mr. Pashinyan has countered that Armenia hasn’t formally applied for E.U. membership, so the point is moot.
Though Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiated a peace deal last year in Washington, the final pact has yet to be signed. Nor have the nations fully agreed on the border that would result from the deal.
To finalize the agreement, Azerbaijan has insisted that Armenia remove claims to the disputed region from its founding documents that are referred to in the Armenian Constitution. Changes to the Constitution require a two-thirds majority in the Armenian Parliament, which Mr. Pashinyan’s party did not appear to be on track to receive. Once passed in Parliament, any change would also have to go to a referendum.
Armenia has a complicated formula for deciding the makeup of Parliament. Individual parties must receive 4 percent of the vote to clear the threshold to enter the legislature. When blocs of two or three parties join together, as in the case of Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance, they must receive 8 percent of the vote to clear the bar.
Mr. Pashinyan’s government has urged the United States to continue its involvement in the region and help Armenia and Azerbaijan reach a final peace deal after decades of deadly and destabilizing war.
“We value these relations and the support of the United States for the establishing and strengthening democratic institutions in Armenia,” the Armenian ambassador to the United States, Narek Mkrtchyan, said in an interview ahead of the vote.
“This election is about peace,” he said. “We strongly believe that after peace is prosperity.”
As part of the talks mediated by the United States, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to build what is known as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a rail and road corridor that would connect two parts of Azerbaijan through Armenia along the border with Iran.
Mr. Pashinyan has said the completion of the project would bring prosperity and additional geopolitical security to Armenia by linking the economic interests of nations that long considered each other enemies.
