Country profile
Armenia
Hayastani Hanrapetut'yun
Asia · Western Asia
AM · ARM
- Capital
- Yerevan
- Population
- 3,076,200
- Area
- 29,743 km²
- Democracy index
- 56
- Regime type
- Hybrid Regime
Events
Ballots from Armenia
The latest elections, referendums, and opinion polls from Armenia. Community totals are not official results.
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Classification
Democracy profile
The score and regime label are assigned by Porto Voto using our in-house democracy index and classification framework, not ratings from governments or external agencies.
Democracy index
56/100
Regime type
Hybrid Regime
Armenia remains in a delicate state of transition as it prepares for the June 2026 parliamentary elections, a contest that will serve as a critical barometer for the democratic reforms initiated after 2018. The current political climate is marked by a deepening polarization between the ruling Civil Contract party and a fragmented opposition, with recent reports indicating an increase in the arrests of activists and journalists that has raised domestic and international concerns. While the government has made strides in judicial transparency, the system continues to face significant pressure from entrenched interests and a tense security environment following the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh. Media pluralism exists, yet it is often characterized by partisan ownership and susceptibility to political influence, preventing the emergence of a fully neutral information space. The upcoming electoral cycle is viewed as a test of whether the state can maintain its democratic trajectory or if it will succumb to the structural biases and executive consolidation common in hybrid systems. Public trust in institutions remains volatile, influenced heavily by the government's handling of regional security and the perceived fairness of the pre election environment.
Last evaluation:
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Country background
A concise introduction to Armenia, together with notes on how power and law are organized, to put local ballots in context.
Armenia prides itself on being the first state to formally adopt Christianity (early 4th century). Armenia has existed as a political entity for centuries, but for much of its history it was under the sway of various empires, including the Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Persian, Ottoman, and Russian. During World War I, the Ottoman Empire instituted a policy of forced resettlement that, coupled with other harsh practices targeting its Armenian subjects, resulted in at least 1 million deaths; these actions have been widely recognized as constituting genocide.
During the early 19th century, significant Armenian populations fell under Russian rule. Armenia declared its independence in 1918 in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, but it was conquered by the Soviet Red Army in 1920. Armenia, along with Azerbaijan and Georgia, was initially incorporated into the USSR as part of the Transcaucasian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic; in 1936, the republic was separated into its three constituent entities, which were maintained until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
For over three decades, Armenia had a longstanding conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan about the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which historically had a mixed Armenian and Azerbaijani population, although ethnic Armenians have constituted the majority since the late 19th century. In 1921, Moscow placed Nagorno-Karabakh within Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous oblast. In the late Soviet period, a separatist movement developed that sought to end Azerbaijani control over the region.
Fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988 and escalated after Armenia and Azerbaijan declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. By the time a cease-fire took effect in 1994, separatists with Armenian support controlled Nagorno‑Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories. Armenia and Azerbaijan engaged in a second military conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020; Armenia lost control over much of the territory it had previously captured, returning the southern part of Nagorno-Karabakh and the territories around it to Azerbaijan.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan took military action to regain control over Nagorno-Karabakh; after an armed conflict that lasted only one day, nearly the entire ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh fled to Armenia. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan during the first period of conflict with Armenia and has since maintained a closed border, leaving Armenia with closed borders both in the west (with Turkey) and east (with Azerbaijan). Armenia and Turkey engaged in intensive diplomacy to normalize relations and open the border in 2009, but the signed agreement was not ratified in either country.
In 2015, Armenia joined the Eurasian Economic Union alongside Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. In 2017, Armenia signed a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the EU. In 2018, former President of Armenia (2008-18) Serzh SARGSIAN of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) tried to extend his time in power, prompting protests that became known as the “Velvet Revolution.” After SARGSIAN resigned, the National Assembly elected the leader of the protests, Civil Contract party chief Nikol PASHINYAN, as the new prime minister.
PASHINYAN’s party has prevailed in subsequent legislative elections, most recently in 2021.