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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was celebrated as a national hero when he swept to power in a peaceful revolution in 2018, but now he is fighting for political survival, France 24 reports.

Pashinyan has come under immense pressure to resign since November, when he signed a ceasefire agreement with Azerbaijan that ended six weeks of fighting for control of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The 46-year-old reformer now faces a key test in snap parliamentary polls Sunday, a vote he called in the hope of defusing a political crisis and renewing his mandate.

November's Moscow-brokered agreement led Armenia to cede swathes of territory it had controlled for decades and was seen as national humiliation.

The president and top military commanders demanded that Pashinyan step down, and people turned out in protracted street protests.

During an aggressive campaign he said he expected his party to win 60 percent of the vote and brandished a hammer.

From hero to traitor 

In the provinces, villagers greeted him as a hero, offering him fresh bread and berries as he led the protest movement.

He walked hundreds of kilometres across the country, slept in the open, clambered onto the roofs of garages and stood on benches to deliver speeches.

Three years on he has lost much of his appeal.

"Traitor! Capitulator!" are among the insults regularly hurled at Pashinyan by former supporters.

"Pashinyan yielded everything to the enemy, this man is a loser who ruined everything. He has failed on all of his promises," his main rival, former president Robert Kocharyan, told supporters recently.

Analyst Alexander Iskandaryan said that "Pashinyan is rapidly losing popularity and faces an uphill battle in the upcoming elections."

Some polls show that Pashinyan's party is neck-in-neck with Kocharyan's electoral bloc.