On the morning of August 7 in Stepanakert, the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh convened an extraordinary session with the agenda of electing a new President and Speaker of the National Assembly and elected Davit Ishkhanyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Bureau, as its new President/Speaker.

Multiple sources confirm that Ishkhanyan was the only candidate around whom there was positive political consensus by all political forces in Artsakh. This step represents a definite political rearrangement in Artsakh, as the government cedes the country’s second position to a member of the political opposition. It is noteworthy here that in a Parliament with thirty-three deputies, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a party with just three members will be elected to the post.

It is also important to note that according to the Constitution of the Artsakh Republic, in the event of the possible resignation of the Republic’s President or the impossibility of performing his functions, the President/Speaker of the National Assembly becomes the acting President of the Republic.

Given that Armenia’s authorities have clearly washed their hands of Artsakh, with Pashinyan himself declaring that he recognizes Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, the role of Artsakh’s Parliament has increased tremendously. In this context, Ishkhanyan’s election to the post of President/Speaker of the Parliament has the potential to facilitate better activation and coordination of structures in the Diaspora to work for Artsakh’s cause in international arenas, as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Ishkhanyan’s party, is the only worldwide Armenian organization with active structures in Artsakh, Armenia and the Diaspora.

Davit Ishkhanyan was born in 1968 in Ashan, a village in Artsakh’s Martouni region. An Educator by profession, he is a graduate of the Stepanakert Pedagogical Institute’s Faculty of History and Law, and has served as the Headmaster/Principal of the Secondary School of Ashan between 1995 and 2000.

Ishkhanyan participated in the Artsakh Liberation War, first as a member of the student detachment and later in the NKR Defense Army, as the commander of the 28th Battalion in the Martuni region. Ishkhanyan was elected a deputy of the first convocation of NKR Supreme Council (Parliament) between 1991 and 1995.

He is a recipient of the military “Battle Cross” Order of 1st Degree and “Mkhitar Gosh” Medals by NKR Presidential Decrees.

Ishkhanyan has been a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation since 1989. He was elected as the Chairman of the ARF Artsakh’s Central Committee in 2007, and ARF Bureau, the organization’s worldwide executive body, in 2022.

Ishkhanyan was most recently elected to Artsakh’s parliament in March of 2020.

He is married and has three children.