Armenia is no longer witnessing a simple pre-election contest. What is unfolding is a struggle over who will successfully claim the role of Nikol Pashinyan’s main challenger — and who can convert public exhaustion into political force. In that struggle, the confrontation between the prime minister and Samvel Karapetyan has taken on special importance. But looked at more closely, this is no longer merely a dispute between two men. It has become a knot binding together state power, the Church, the Russian factor, a new opposition pole, and the still very real shadow of Robert Kocharyan.
The open phase of the Pashinyan–Karapetyan confrontation began in 2025, when Karapetyan publicly backed the Armenian Apostolic Church during Pashinyan’s escalating conflict with church leadership. According to CivilNet, this was followed by searches, pressure on Karapetyan’s assets, and criminal proceedings. He was arrested on charges linked to public calls for the seizure of power, and later his detention was eased to house arrest plus a major bail package.
This matters because the government frames Karapetyan’s case as a question of law and state security, while his supporters portray it as selective justice and political retaliation. That split itself has become part of the election campaign. Karapetyan has thus turned from a powerful businessman into a political symbol — not because he has already built a fully mature party machine, but because his clash with the government resonates with a protest-minded electorate.
That symbol is now being institutionalized. At the February congress of Strong Armenia, Samvel Karapetyan was announced as the party’s candidate for prime minister, despite a clear constitutional obstacle: under Armenia’s Constitution, a prime minister must have held only Armenian citizenship during the previous four years. CivilNet notes that Karapetyan also holds Russian and Cypriot citizenship, and the party openly states that it intends to amend Article 148 of the Constitution after the election. Narek Karapetyan publicly laid out that roadmap.
This is where Robert Kocharyan enters the picture. His role is double-edged. On the one hand, Kocharyan remains the heaviest and most experienced opposition figure, officially running as prime ministerial candidate of the Armenia Alliance. On the other, Strong Armenia has begun to eat into the political territory long assumed to belong to him: the anti-Pashinyan voter who does not necessarily want a full return to the old order in its classic form. In the March IRI poll cited by CivilNet, Civil Contract stood at 24%, Strong Armenia at 9%, and Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance at around 3%; among likely voters, Civil Contract rose to 29% and Strong Armenia to 11%.
That means Kocharyan can no longer treat the entire anti-Pashinyan camp as his natural domain. But neither can Samvel Karapetyan yet replace Kocharyan as the single center of gravity for the opposition. This is why the relationship between them looks like concealed rivalry inside a broader anti-Pashinyan field. Formally, they oppose the same prime minister. Politically, they are also competing with one another for the title of the main alternative pole.
This is precisely why the Putin–Pashinyan meeting in Moscow on April 1, 2026 matters so much. What happened in reality, once emotions and conspiracy are stripped away? The official Armenian readout shows that the two sides discussed energy cooperation, including a new nuclear power plant, collaboration on new energy technologies, broader economic ties, and the difficult issue of balancing Armenia’s EU agenda with its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. Pashinyan explicitly said that membership in both unions is, in principle, incompatible, but that Armenia is still trying to combine these agendas for as long as possible — and that Armenian citizens will make the final decision when the time comes. He also stressed that relations with Russia “have never been and will never be questioned.”
But the political meaning of the meeting went beyond the official readout. AP and CivilNet both pointed out that Putin publicly reminded Yerevan that a move toward the EU is incompatible with continued EAEU membership, while also touching on Armenia’s election climate and the arrests of pro-Russian figures. CivilNet wrote that Moscow had increased pressure on Yerevan over its EU aspirations and that Putin delivered “pointed messages” on Armenia’s domestic politics, foreign-policy orientation, and economic ties. Put plainly, there was no secret reconciliation in Moscow. There was a warning about the limits of Armenia’s geopolitical maneuver.
Can one say the meeting was directly about Samvel Karapetyan? There is no official confirmation of that. Yet the broader context strongly suggests the subject was present indirectly: AP and CivilNet both noted that Putin criticized the arrests of Russia-oriented figures, and some reporting implied that the Kremlin could not have missed the political signal embedded in the Karapetyan case and the Church confrontation. That, however, remains not a proven fact, but a political interpretation — albeit a plausible one.
This brings us to the final question: what threatens Armenia if Pashinyan wins the parliamentary election again? The answer should not be reduced to slogans. The risk lies less in one man as such than in the continuation of a model already formed. If Pashinyan wins, Armenia is likely to continue its multi-vector foreign policy while attempting a hard balance between the EU, the U.S., and Russia, but without a final rupture with Moscow. At the same time, domestic polarization will remain high, because the government has already demonstrated its willingness to respond forcefully to challenges from the Church, major businessmen, and opposition centers. And if the victory is politically sufficient but not socially convincing, Armenia may enter an even more nervous phase — one marked by weak trust and strong administrative control.
There is another danger as well: if Pashinyan wins, he will have to prove that his core message of “peace at almost any cost” can deliver not merely a pause, but actual security. Analytical writing around the 2026 campaign increasingly suggests that his team is selling fear of renewed war as an argument for retaining power. If that argument works once again, but real security does not improve afterward, the price of that mandate will be extremely high — for him and for the country.
That is why the Pashinyan–Samvel Karapetyan confrontation is not simply a clash between a prime minister and a billionaire. It is a test of who in Armenia can channel protest, who can speak to the church-minded, national, and Russia-oriented electorate, and who can persuade people that the country will not emerge from June weaker, lonelier, and more anxious than before. And Robert Kocharyan’s shadow matters because he remains the man who has not disappeared — but no longer monopolizes the opposition narrative. That may be what makes the 2026 election so dangerous: the government is not facing one alternative, but several competing alternatives, and each carries its own kind of risk for Armenia.
By Lida Nalbandyan, Founder and CEO of Octopus Media Group