Both opposition forces accused them of continuing to execute Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s orders to try to influence the election results through crackdowns on the ruling Civil Contract party’s leading election challengers.
Strong Armenia’s Aleksan Aleksanian was swiftly charged with large-scale vote buying and money laundering. The Investigative Committee said that since last September Aleksanian has hired some 1,400 people to work for a non-governmental organization that formed the backbone of Karapetian’s opposition movement.
The law-enforcement agency claimed that they were paid to attend the movement’s rallies under the guise of their wages. It did not explain why it thinks that their jobs registered with tax authorities were fictitious.
Armenia - Billionaire and opposition leader Samvel Karapetian meets with residents of Kotayk province at his home in Yerevan, May 24, 2026.
The committee said that the movement received over 763 million drams ($2 million) from Karapetian’s charity and two firms to pay those individuals’ wages. It did not back up its claim that the money was “obtained as a result of criminal activity.”
In anticipation of his arrest, Aleksanian recorded overnight a video appeal to supporters. It was posted on Strong Armenia’s social media accounts a few hours after he was taken into custody and indicted.
“My dear people, if you watch this video, it means that I have been detained or arrested,” Aleksanian said. “All this is the result of this regime’s fears, weakness and ineptness.”
The authorities “will not succeed,” he said, expressing confidence that Pashinian and Civil Contract will be defeated on Sunday.
Dozens and possibly hundreds of Strong Armenia members or supporters have been arrested in recent months on charges of giving or taking vote bribes. Karapetian’s bloc rejects them as politically motivated.
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian and senior members of his Hayastan bloc campaign in Spitak, May 29, 2026.
The authorities have opened a smaller number of such criminal cases against the two other opposition heavyweights, Kocharian’s Hayastan alliance and businessman Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). Also, Andranik Tevanian, who is second on the BHK’s list of election candidates, was arrested on May 23 on charges of spying for Russian intelligence strongly denied by him.
On Tuesday, investigators searched Hayastan’s campaign offices in Ashtarak, a town 21 kilometers west of Yerevan, as well as the home of an opposition lawmaker overseeing them. They did not immediately comment on the raids strongly condemned by Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leading Hayastan member. He claimed that Pashinian’s administration keeps trying to disrupt the bloc’s election campaign and bully its supporters.
“Nikol Pashinian, you and the law-enforcement system catering for you have long been predictable and you will not achieve any results with such actions,” Saghatelian said in a video statement posted on Facebook.
The ruling party itself is accused by the Armenian opposition of trying to buy votes with mostly public money. None of its members or supporters have been prosecuted on corresponding charges. Nor have the law-enforcement authorities launched formal investigations into reports that schoolchildren, teachers and other public sector employees are illegally ordered to attend Pashinian’s campaign rallies.