Robert Kocharyan

Robert Sedraki Kocharyan (Ռոբերտ Սեդրակի Քոչարյան ; born 31 August 1954) is an Armenian politician.

Robert Kocharyan was born on 31 August 1954 in Stepanakert, capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.

Kocharyan's career began as an engineer at Stepanakert's electro-technical plant in 1971.

He received his secondary education in Stepanakert and served in the Soviet Army from 1972 to 1974.

Throughout the 1980s, he occupied various posts in Nagorno-Karabakh's communist youth league and party.

At one point he served as deputy secretary of the Stepanakert Komsomol, which was headed by his later successor as president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan.

In 1982, he graduated with honors from the Electro-Technical Department of the Karl Marx Polytechnic Institute in Yerevan (now called the National Polytechnic University of Armenia).

By February 1988, Kocharyan became one of the leaders of the Karabakh movement as a member of the Krunk ("Crane") organization.

The Karabakh movement, which started in Nagorno-Karabakh then spread to Soviet Armenia, sought to achieve the transfer of the autonomous region from Azerbaijan to Armenia.

After the organization broke apart, he founded the Miatsum ("Unification") organization.

In 1989, he was elected to Soviet Armenia's Supreme Soviet.

In 1991, Kocharyan was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the newly established Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR).

Kocharyan became a member of the Pan-Armenian National Movement (then the ruling party of Armenia) and its executive board, representing the party in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In January 1992, Kocharyan was a candidate for president of the Supreme Soviet of the NKR, but lost to Artur Mkrtchyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict plunged into all-out war.

Kocharyan participated in the Capture of Shushi in May 1992, one of the most significant Armenian victories of the war.

In August 1992, Kocharyan became chairman of the State Defense Committee of the NKR, an extraordinary body which held all executive powers during the war.

That year he also became prime minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

He served as the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from 1994 to 1997 and Prime Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1992 to 1994.

Kocharyan coordinated the war effort of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in its war against Azerbaijan, which ended in an Armenian victory with the signing of a ceasefire agreement in May 1994 by representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan and the NKR.

Kocharyan was elected NKR's first president on 24 December 1994 by the decision of the NKR Supreme Soviet.

He was reelected by popular vote in November 1996.

On 20 March 1997, Kocharyan left his post as President of the NKR when he was appointed Prime Minister of Armenia by President Levon Ter-Petrosyan.

He served as the second President of Armenia between 1998 and 2008 and as Prime Minister of Armenia from 1997 to 1998.

Kocharyan was elected president of Armenia twice, in 1998 and 2003; both presidential elections were held in two rounds.

In February 1998, President Ter-Petrosyan was forced to step down by Kocharyan, Defense Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, and Interior Minister Serzh Sargsyan, who were opposed to Ter-Petrosyan's move to accept a peace plan for Karabakh put forward by international mediators in September 1997.

The plan, accepted by Ter-Petrosyan and Azerbaijan, called for a "phased" settlement of the conflict which would postpone an agreement on Karabakh's status.

The first phase of the agreement envisioned the return of most Armenian-controlled Azerbaijani territories around Karabakh in exchange for security guarantees, demilitarization of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories, and the lifting of the Azerbaijani and Turkish blockades of Armenia.

After his predecessor Levon Ter-Petrosyan was ousted as President, Kocharyan was elected Armenia's second President on 30 March 1998, defeating his main rival, Karen Demirchyan (who was a former leader of Soviet Armenia), in an early presidential election marred by irregularities and violations by both sides as reported by international electoral observers.

There were also complaints that Kocharyan was not eligible to run under the Armenian constitution, which required candidates to be an Armenian citizen and have resided in Armenia for ten years.

Before he became prime minister, Kocharyan resided in and was considered a citizen of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

Kocharyan was supported by Vazgen Sargsyan's Republican Party, as well as the banned Armenian Revolutionary Federation, which he relegalized early in his presidency.

After their coalition won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections in May 1999, Vazgen Sargsyan took the office of prime minister while Karen Demirchyan became speaker of the parliament.

During most of his presidency, between 2001 and 2007, Armenia's economy grew on average by 12% annually, largely due to a construction boom.

While Kocharyan's supporters credit him with securing Armenia's economic growth during his presidency, his critics accuse him of promoting corruption and the creation of an oligarchic system of government in Armenia.

On July 26, 2018 Kocharyan was charged in connection with the crackdown on the 2008 Armenian presidential election protests in the final weeks of his presidency, which resulted in the deaths of ten people.

Kocharyan's trial began on 13 May 2019.

The trial ended in March 2021 after the Constitutional Court of Armenia declared unconstitutional the article of the criminal code under which Kocharyan was being tried.

Kocharyan returned to active participation in Armenian politics following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020.

He participated in the 2021 Armenian parliamentary election as the head of the Armenia Alliance with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Reborn Armenia party, which came in second place after Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party and entered parliament as the opposition.