Nikol Vovayi Pashinyan (born 1 June 1975) is an Armenian politician who has served as the 16th and current prime minister of Armenia since 2018. A journalist by profession, Pashinyan founded his own newspaper in 1998, which was shut down a year later for libel. He was sentenced for one year for defamation against then Minister of National Security Serzh Sargsyan. He edited the newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak ("Armenian Times") from 1999 to 2012. A supporter of Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, he was highly critical of second president Robert Kocharyan, Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan, and their allies. Pashinyan was also critical of Armenia's close relations with Russia, and promoted establishing closer relations with Turkey instead. He led a minor opposition party in the 2007 parliamentary election, garnering 1.3% of the vote.
Pashinyan was a dedicated supporter of Ter-Petrosyan, who made a political comeback prior to the 2008 presidential election, before losing to Sargsyan in what Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters claimed was a fraudulent election. Pashinyan was one of the leaders of Ter-Petrosyan's supporters in the post-election protests in February and March 2008; the protests were dispersed by security forces on 1 March, resulting in the deaths of ten people. Convicted of organizing mass disorders, he went into hiding until mid-2009. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the protests. He was released in May 2011 as part of a general amnesty. He was elected to parliament from Ter-Petrosyan's broad opposition coalition, the Armenian National Congress, in 2012.
Pashinyan later distanced himself from Ter-Petrosyan on political grounds, establishing the party Civil Contract. Along with two other opposition parties, Pashinyan formed the Way Out Alliance which garnered almost 8% of the vote in the 2017 parliamentary election. He was the leader of the 2018 Armenian Revolution which forced Prime Minister Sargsyan and his government to resign. He was elected acting prime minister by parliament on 8 May 2018 and won snap parliamentary elections in December 2018. Pashinyan's victory had originally been heralded by some observers as an improvement in democracy, while others have criticized Pashinyan as a mere populist. Pashinyan's new government included multiple liberal western NGO activists being appointed to senior positions, as well as supporters from the Velvet Revolution who had no previous political experience.
Pashinyan led Armenia through the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, the most recent and significant outbreak of violence due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia with the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh and its neighbor Azerbaijan. The war, which was ended after 44 days of fighting by a trilateral ceasefire agreement signed by Pashinyan on 9 November 2020, resulted in significant human, material and territorial losses for the Armenian side. Pashinyan's government was criticized within Armenia for its management of the war. Following the war, Pashinyan was accused of being a traitor and faced protests and calls for his resignation. Despite the protests and a declaration by 40 high-ranking military officers calling for his resignation (which Pashinyan described as a coup attempt), Pashinyan resisted calls to hand over political power. On 25 April 2021, Pashinyan announced his formal resignation to allow snap elections to be held in June, although he remained as acting prime minister in the leadup to the elections. His party won the 2021 election, receiving more than half of all votes.
Following the 2020 war and the 2023 displacement of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinyan's approval ratings declined, falling by approximately 50% over four months, though he remained the most trusted politician in Armenia and later regained some approval. As a result of Pashinyan's efforts, Armenia and Azerbaijan prepared a formal peace agreement, which also entailed multiple compromises on the part of Armenia. In the 2026 election, Pashinyan was re-elected with 49.8% of the vote in spite of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Early life and education Nikol Pashinyan was born on 1 June 1975 in Ijevan, in the northeastern province of Tavush. At least one of his grandparents was from the village of Yenokavan, around from Ijevan. () He was named after his paternal grandfather who died in World War II. He served in the 554th Rifle Regiment of the 138th Rifle Division and died in 1943.() His father, Vova Pashinyan (1940–2020), worked as a football and volleyball coach and as a physical education teacher.() His mother Svetlana died when he was 12 and he was mostly raised by his stepmother, Yerjanik, who was Vova's second wife. He graduated from the Ijevan Secondary School N1 in 1991. In 2018, Pashinyan claimed to have organized students strikes, marches and demonstrations during the Karabakh movement of 1988. He did not serve in the Armenian Army because his two elder brothers served before him and he was not obliged to serve by law. Pashinyan studied journalism at Yerevan State University (YSU) from 1991 to 1995. He was expelled from the university before graduating. Pashinyan claimed to have been expelled for his political activities, although Yerevan State University released a statement that Pashinyan had been expelled due to absences. In a 2015 interview Pashinyan stated that he considers himself more of a journalist because journalism brought him into politics.
Journalism career Pashinyan became engaged in journalism in 1992 as a journalism student at YSU. He worked at the newspapers Dprutyun, Hayastan, Lragir, and Molorak. In 1998 he founded the daily Oragir ("Diary"). It was affiliated with the Nor Ughi ("New Path") opposition party led by former Minister of Education Ashot Bleyan. During the 1999 parliamentary election Oragir was highly critical of Country of Legality, the party of Serzh Sargsyan, then Minister of the Interior and National Security, and the Right and Accord Bloc led by Artashes Geghamyan and supported by Samvel Babayan, the powerful defense minister of Nagorno-Karabakh. During the election Oragir published 281 articles on political parties participating in the election, of which 11 were positive. All positive coverage was given to ex-president Levon Ter-Petrosyan's Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh), which the newspaper sympathized with.
In August 1999 Pashinyan was sentenced to one year in prison after refusing to pay a libel fine of around $25,000. He was also ordered to retract his accusations against Serzh Sargsyan and Mika-Armenia, a large trading company which the court had ruled constituted defamation. The properties of Oragir were confiscated and its bank accounts frozen. According to Simon Payaslian, the case made Pashinyan the "first journalist prosecuted for libel in post-Soviet Armenia." His conviction was criticized by Armenian and foreign human rights activists. Human rights defender Avetik Ishkhanian noted that "In 1999 almost as many cases were brought against Oragir as against all newspapers of Armenia from 1994 till 1998. This is evidence of political persecution." Under apparent local and international pressure, the Court of Appeals reduced his punishment to a one-year suspended sentence because the original sentence was too harsh.
Haykakan Zhamanak Following the demise of Oragir, Pashinyan became the editor of Haykakan Zhamanak ("Armenian Times"), affiliated with the minor opposition Democratic Homeland Party, led by former MP Petros Makeyan which had split off from the Ter-Petrosyan led HHSh. Pashinyan remained editor of the newspaper until 2012, when he was elected to parliament. The US State Department characterized both Oragir and Haykakan Zhamanak as "sensationalist political tabloids." The U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty described the newspaper as "sympathetic to Armenia's former leadership [Ter-Petrosyan's government], is known for its hard-hitting coverage of President Robert Kocharian and his government."
On 23 December 1999, Pashinyan was beaten by a "gang" of a dozen men who were reportedly led by a local businessman who was angered by an article in Haykakan Zhamanak that accused him of corruption.
In March 2002, Pashinyan was charged with slandering Hovhannes Yeritsyan, head of the civil aviation agency of Armenia, for allegedly insulting the latter in the 6 November 2001 issue of the newspaper, which featured a photo of Yeritsyan with the caption, "Degenerate officials recruited for the civil service." The charges were condemned by the three largest parliamentary groups, including pro-government ones. The case was eventually dropped in April by prosecutors by citing lack of evidence.
On 22 November 2004, a Lada Niva car belonging to Pashinyan, parked outside the office of Haykakan Zhamanak exploded. The fire caused by the explosion was put out by firefighters. Pashinyan claimed it was an attack perpetrated by Gagik Tsarukyan, an oligarch and MP close to president Robert Kocharyan who was deputy chairman of the Armenian Olympic Committee (AOC). He suggested it may have been a retaliation for a "derogatory cartoon" deploring the poor performance of Armenian athletes at the Athens Olympics. The newspaper staff believed it was hit by a Molotov cocktail or an improvised explosive device. A police inquiry immediately pointed to an apparent "breakdown of the car battery's wires." Tsarukyan denied any involvement. Instead, he stated: "In order to boost their standing people may say different unnecessary things."
Early political career During the 1998 Armenian presidential election, Pashinyan was a member of the election office of presidential candidate Ashot Bleyan, former Minister of Education and Science under president Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Bleyan was the leader of the Nor Ughi ("New Path") Party, which had split from (HHSh), the ruling party of Ter-Petrosyan.
2007 parliamentary election Pashinyan entered the political scene prior to the 2007 parliamentary election. He led the Impeachment Union, an electoral bloc consisting of his political organization named "Alternative" and the Democratic Fatherland and Conservative parties, led by former HHSh MP Petros Makeyan and Mikayel Hayrapetyan, respectively. The primary policy goal of the bloc was impeaching President Robert Kocharyan, but also ousting Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan and oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan from power. On 20 February 2007, their first rally at Yerevan's Freedom Square drew around 1,000 people, which prompted RFE/RL to note that Ter-Petrosyan's allies have a "persisting lack of public support." The bloc offered a liberal alternative to the policies of Kocharyan. Pashinyan stated at the rally: "We have come to this square to say that we are the masters of our country, the masters of its misery and splendor, its heroism and recklessness, its victories and defeats. What we want is a homeland with citizens, a homeland which is able to protect its citizens."