Levon Ter-Petrosyan
Levon Hakobi Ter-Petrosyan, also known by his initials LTP, is an Armenian politician and historian who served as the first president of Armenia from 1991 until his resignation in 1998. A senior researcher at the Matenadaran, he led the Karabakh movement for the unification of the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia which began in 1988. After Armenia's declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in September 1991, Ter-Petrosyan was elected president in October 1991 with overwhelming public support. He led the country through the First Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighboring Azerbaijan. He was reelected in the 1996 presidential election, which was marred by accusations of electoral fraud, sparking mass protests led by runner-up Vazgen Manukyan. The mass rallies were suppressed by military force. Due to disagreements with key members of his government over a peace proposal for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, especially Defence Minister Vazgen Sargsyan and Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan, Ter-Petrosyan resigned on 3 February 1998. From his resignation up to 2007, Ter-Petrosyan was inactive in the political scene. However, he made a political comeback in September 2007 and ran for president in 2008. He faced one of his former government members, at the time Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan. According to official results, he earned 21.5% of the total vote. Ter-Petrosyan claimed the elections were rigged and led thousands of his supporters in mass protests against the alleged electoral fraud and called for new elections. After a week of mass protests, the government used police and military force to disperse his supporters, resulting in the deaths of ten people on 1 March 2008. On 1 August 2008, Ter-Petrosyan founded the Armenian National Congress (ANC) which included more than a dozen of political parties and NGOs. Being the main opposition party in Armenia at the time, the ANC was out of the parliament and was mainly involved in street protests against Serzh Sargsyan's government. They organized mass rallies in 2011, forcing the government to grant several political concessions. In parliamentary elections in 2012, the ANC received 7.1% of the popular vote, gaining 7 seats. Ter-Petrosyan's party lost those seats in the following elections and has not entered parliament since. He led the ANC's electoral list during snap parliamentary elections in June 2021, where the party again failed to enter parliament.
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