### The arithmetic everyone missed
Nikol Pashinyan declared victory at 2:10 a.m. on 7 June, before 15 per cent of the votes were counted [17]. By the time the Armenian Central Election Commission announced preliminary results [2, 6, 11, 20, 30], his Civil Contract party had secured 49.82 per cent—a clear first place, but a pyrrhic one [20]. The ruling party will hold 64 seats in the 101-member National Assembly, down from the constitutional two-thirds majority it enjoyed since 2021 [17]. That threshold matters: Pashinyan can no longer amend the Constitution or initiate referenda on fundamental articles without opposition support [17]. The conventional read is that he won. The correct read is that he lost the instrument of his power.