Serzh Sargsyan

President of Armenia

Serzh Azati Sargsyan born June 30, 1954þ Is the current President of Armenia. He won the February 2008 presidential election with the backing of the conservative Republican Party of Armenia, a party in which he serves as chairman, and took office in April 2008. He is of no relation to the current Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan.
Personal details
Serzh Sargsyan was born on June 30, 1954 in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh (then the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within Soviet Azerbaijan). He was admitted to Yerevan State University in 1971, served in the Soviet Armed Forces during 1971-72, and graduated from the Philological Department of Yerevan State University in 1979. In 1983, he married his wife, Rita. They have two daughters, Anush and Satenik, and one granddaughter, Mariam. He is the chairman of the Chess Federation of Armenia.

 Early career
Sargsyan's career began in 1975 at the Electrical Devices Factory in Yerevan[4], where he worked as a metal turner until 1979 when he became head of the Stepanakert City Communist Party Youth Association Committee. Then served as second secretary, first secretary, the Stepanakert City Committee Propaganda Division Head, the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee Communist Organizations' Unit Instructor, and finally as the assistant to Genrikh Poghosyan, the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee.
As tensions rose over Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Sargsyan became chairman of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Self-Defense Forces Committee and was subsequently elected to the Supreme Soviet of Armenia in 1990. He organized several battles in the Nagorno-Karabakh War and is considered to be one of the founders of Nagorno-Karabakh's and Armenia's armed forces. He became the Armenian defense minister in 1993, head of Armenian state security department in 1995 and minister of national security in 1996. In 1999, he became Robert Kocharyan's chief of staff, then secretary of the national security council, defense minister, and prime minister in 2007.

[edit] 2008 presidential election
Sargsyan, with President Kocharyan's backing, was viewed as the strongest contender for the post of the President of Armenia in the February 2008 presidential election. Full provisional results showed him winning about 53% of the vote, a first round majority, well ahead of second place candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian.Ter-Petrossian's supporters, disputing the official results, held large protests in Yerevan for over a week following the election, until they were violently broken up by police on March 1; eight people were killed, and a state of emergency was imposed for 20 days, ending on March 20th, 2008.