Vazgen Manukyan

Vazgen Mikayeli Manukyan (Armenian: , born 13 February 1946) is an Armenian politician who served as the first Prime Minister of Armenia from 1990 to 1991. From 1992 to 1993, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Manukyan was acting Defence Minister of Armenia. He was also a member of Armenia's parliament from 1990 to 2007. Vazgen Manukyan was a co-founder and the coordinator of the Karabakh Committee (officially founded in February 1988), the body which led the Karabakh movement aimed at uniting Nagorno-Karabakh

with Soviet Armenia. He was arrested by Soviet authorities on December 10, 1988, along with other members of the Karabakh Committee, and spent 6 months in Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina prison. He was elected the first chairman of the Pan-Armenian National Movement in October 1989. From 1990 to 1991, he served as the Prime Minister of Armenia. On September 26, 1991, Vazgen Manukyan resigned as prime minister and founded his own party, the National Democratic Union (NDU), and has since served as its chairman.

In September 1992, he was appointed Minister of State and Minister of Defense, while managing the military–industrial complex of Armenia at the same time. Under Vazgen Manukyan, the Armenian Armed Forces were formed, the course of the war changed in favor of the Armenian side. He was dismissed from his post in August 1993. In the 1996 Armenian presidential elections, Vazgen Manukyan received the support of the major opposition parties and was the main challenger to incumbent President Levon Ter-Petrosyan.