Who is Nikol Pashinyan?

• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed victory in a general election as preliminary results showed his governing Civil Contract Party came first with 49.81 per cent of the vote.

• The victory is seen as an endorsement of the nation’s pro-Western shift after threats from Moscow and claims of Russian interference.

• Pashinyan and his party were looking for a strong mandate for a new geopolitical course for Armenia, including distancing from Moscow, seeking to join the European Union and deepening cooperation with the West.

• The voting on June 7 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.

• Opposition alliances Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance won 23.2 per cent and 9.9 per cent of the vote respectively. A fourth party, Prosperous Armenia, failed to meet the 4 per cent threshold to enter Parliament.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Nikol Pashinyan on the victory and said he was looking forward to working closely with him.

• Yerevan is the capital of Armenia.

Who is Nikol Pashinyan?

• Nikol Pashinyan was born on June 1, 1975 in Ijevan.

• He worked as a journalist and rose to be editor of Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak.

• Pashinyan was imprisoned in June 2009 on charges of fomenting unrest during post-election protests that turned violent. 

• Pashinyan was sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released two years later under an amnesty.

• In a 2017 parliamentary election, Pashinyan was elected a member of the National Assembly.

• On March 31, 2018, he initiated the My Step movement in Gyumri’s Vardanants Square, which resulted in a non-violent velvet popular revolution in April-May of the same year.

• On May 8, 2018, at the request of the popular movement, he was elected Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia in the National Assembly.

• In August 2025, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan signed a peace agreement during a meeting with US President Donald Trump, aimed at ending decades of conflict.