Pashinyan's push to forge closer ties with the West and move Armenia out of the orbit of its former imperial ruler has angered the Kremlin and drawn rebukes from President Vladimir Putin.The election comes after years of turmoil since Pashinyan was swept to power in a 2018 street revolution.The small Caucasus country is still haunted by Azerbaijan's 2023 military takeover of Karabakh, which ended decades of territorial conflict and prompted the exodus of the enclave's 100,000-strong ethnic Armenian population.Pashinyan framed the vote as a choice between lasting peace with Azerbaijan and a return to war.His ruling Civil Contract party got 49.8 percent of the vote, comfortably ahead of the 23.3 percent of the Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan's Strong Armenia alliance, the Central Election Commission said.Pashinyan had the backing of Europe and the United States ahead of the vote.French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday congratulated him and said the result would boost "momentum toward closer ties with Europe".Two other opposition forces -- ex-president Robert Kocharyan's "Armenia" alliance and the Prosperous Armenia party -- also cleared the electoral threshold to get into parliament, winning 9.9 percent and four percent of the vote, respectively.Turnout was 59 percent, the commission said.Analyst Armen Badalyan said the result means that Pashinyan's party "won enough seats in the new parliament to form the country's next cabinet"."But it fell short of the super majority needed to pass constitutional amendments" demanded by Azerbaijan as a condition for a final peace treaty.'Prosperity and cooperation'Pashinyan hailed his party's "historic victory that will ensure Armenia's eternity and development".