Nikol Pashinian has been appointed to a second term as prime minister of Armenia after his political alliance scored a landslide victory in snap parliamentary elections.
President Armen Sarkisian signed the relevant decree on January 14 as the new 132-seat parliament convened for its first session.
Pashinian’s My Step alliance, which won more than 70 percent of the vote in the December 9 parliamentary vote, holds 88 seats in the new legislature.
Two opposition parties, the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) and Bright Armenia, are represented with 26 and 18 seats, respectively.
However, the former ruling Republican Party (HHK) failed to clear the 5 percent threshold in the elections needed to secure parliamentary seats.
Pashinian, a former anticorruption journalist and opposition lawmaker, was elected to the prime minister's post in May after spearheading weeks of mass protests that forced his predecessor, long-entrenched leader Serzh Sarkisian, to resign.
However, the HHK maintained its majority in parliament.
Pashinian announced in October that he was resigning from the prime minister's post in order to dissolve parliament and force early elections.
Pashinian now has a parliamentary majority needed to push through his program of tackling corruption and reforming the economy.