Constitutional Court Strips Prosperous Armenia of Seats by 200 Votes

On July 4, 2026, Armenia’s Constitutional Court upheld the results of the June parliamentary elections but did so by invalidating ballots from three precincts where Prosperous Armenia held a majority. The court’s decision removed enough votes to drop Prosperous Armenia below the 4% threshold required for parliamentary representation, excluding the party from the National Assembly. The margin was razor-thin: out of 1.5 million votes cast, fewer than 200 votes separated Prosperous Armenia from parliamentary seats.

The ruling handed Civil Contract a three-fifths majority with 64 seats, giving the regime substantial power to pass constitutional laws without opposition cooperation. Strong Armenia and Armenia Alliance, the two opposition parties that cleared the threshold, received 41 combined seats, falling one seat short of the 42 needed to block critical constitutional appointments like the Ombudsperson or Prosecutor General. Many in the Armenian opposition view the Constitutional Court’s decision as unconstitutional itself, arguing that the court’s selective invalidation of votes from specific precincts appears designed to engineer a predetermined outcome.

This moment captures the broader concerns about electoral integrity in Armenia during the so-called Velvet Revolution era and Pashinyan’s rule. The opposition now faces a strategic question: whether to accept the results and work within parliament, or challenge the legitimacy of the process itself. The razor-thin margin used to exclude Prosperous Armenia underscores how tenuous the regime’s electoral victory truly was, and how dependent it is on judicial intervention to maintain its supermajority.