return of displaced persons. When Levon Ter-Petrosyan stepped down from the presidency, he compared himself to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and stated that he was resigning was to avoid destabilizing the country. Commenting on the circumstances of his resignation in 2021, Ter-Petrosyan insisted that Vazgen Sargsyan and Kocharyan were "ready for civil war" if he did not resign. Comeback After his resignation, Ter-Petrosyan rarely appeared in public and avoided contact with the media, although there were speculations that he would run for the office of president of Armenia in the general election in February 2003. He instead devoted his time to scientific research. In 2005 and 2007, he published his two-volume historical work titled The Crusaders and the Armenians. 2008 election On 21 September 2007, Ter-Petrosyan made his first public speech in nearly ten years at an event in Yerevan marking the 16th anniversary of Armenia's declaration of independence. In this speech he was strongly critical of President Kocharyan. Subsequently, Ter-Petrosyan officially announced his candidacy in the 2008 presidential election in a speech in Yerevan on 26 October 2007. He accused Kocharyan's government of massive corruption, involving the theft of "at least three to four billion dollars" over the previous five years. He was critical of the government's claims of strong economic growth and argued that Kocharyan and his prime minister, Serzh Sargsyan, had come to accept a solution to the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh that was effectively the same solution that he had proposed ten years earlier. A number of opposition parties rallied behind him after his return to the political arena, including the People's Party of Armenia led by Stepan Demirchyan, the Republic Party led by Aram Sargsyan, the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, "Azadakrum" movement for Jirair Sefilian, the "New Times" Party, and Raffi Hovannisian's Heritage Party. Protests Final results from the election, which was held on 19 February 2008, officially showed Ter-Petrosyan in second place with 21.5% of the vote. Then he and his supporters accused the government of rigging the election and claimed victory; beginning on 20 February he led continuous protests involving tens of thousands of his supporters in Yerevan. In the early morning hours of 1 March, reportedly acting on evidence of firearms in the camp, the authorities moved in to inspect the tents set up by demonstrators. Law enforcement agents then violently dispersed hundreds of protestors. Ter-Petrosyan was placed under de