Armenia's acting PM's party leads parliamentary vote, RIA cites electoral commission

MOSCOW - Armenia's acting prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and his Civil Contract party took an early lead as votes were counted after a parliamentary election on Sunday, the RIA news agency reported, citing the electoral commission.

Armenians were voting in a snap election the government called seeking to end a political crisis that erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a bloody six-week war against Azerbaijan last year and ceded territory in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Pashinyan's party had 58% of the vote in the first figures published by the Central Election Commission (CEC), versus 22% for Armenia Alliance, led by former president Robert Kocharyan, RIA reported.