Dozens and possibly hundreds of Strong Armenia members or supporters have been detained in recent weeks on vote-buying charges rejected by the bloc as politically motivated. Law-enforcement authorities have also clamped down on the two other opposition groups widely regarded as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s main election challengers. They raided on Friday the homes and offices of two key political allies of Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) leader Gagik Tsarukian.
Karapetian claimed that the crackdown is the result of “internal upheavals” within Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s political team.
“They see that they have lost popular support and their only hope is repression,” he told the editors of several independent and pro-opposition media outlets. “But that will not help them at all … When they arrest one person a thousand others take their place. That’s not a problem.”
When asked whether the Armenian opposition could stage massive antigovernment protests in response, he said: “I think that the opposition is ready for all kinds of struggle.”
Armenia - Supporters of billionaire and opposition leader Samvel Karapetian rally in Yerevan, April 11, 2026.
Karapetian said that his alliance, viewed by observers as the number one opposition force, has avoided staging such protests so far because it believes they would be a waste of time and resources.
“Our main technique right now is to communicate our programs to our people,” said the Russian-Armenian tycoon, who is unable to physically attend Strong Armenia’s nationwide election campaign because of remaining under house arrest on what he sees as politically motivated charges.
Karapetian, who has mainly lived in Russia since the early 1990s, showed no interest in politics until being arrested in June last year right after condemning Pashinian’s efforts to depose the top clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He vowed to set up his own political movement and oust Pashinian in the following weeks.
The 60-year-old tycoon said on Friday that shortly after his arrest the Armenian authorities offered to set him free in return for his pledge not to engage in politics and support the supreme head of the church, Catholicos Garegin II. He said he rejected the offer.