YEREVAN, June 9 -- The arrests did not stop when the polls closed. Two more parliamentary candidates from Samvel Karapetyan's Strong Armenia party were taken into custody on Tuesday, Armenia's Investigative Committee announced, bringing the total number of the bloc's candidates placed under arrest to six. The committee said a preventive measure of arrest was applied after two of the candidates were identified and detained, a characteristically sparse statement that offered no timeline for proceedings or names of those held.

The crackdown follows an election the government has already claimed as a mandate. Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party secured 49.81 percent of the vote on June 7, according to the Central Election Commission, a re...