After their coalition won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections in May 1999, Vazgen Sargsyan took the office of prime minister while Karen Demirchyan became speaker of the parliament. On October 27, 1999, Vazgen Sargsyan and Karen Demirchyan were killed along with six other government officials by five gunmen in an episode known as the 1999 Armenian parliament shooting. The attackers then took around fifty people hostage in the parliament building. Kocharyan himself negotiated with the terrorists to release the hostages and surrender to police. Kocharyan and his ally Serzh Sargsyan, who was minister of national security at the time of the shooting, have been suspected of covering up or even masterminding the attack in order to consolidate political power by their political opponents and some relatives and supporters of the assassinated officials. The possibility of Kocharyan's involvement in the events was considered during the investigation in 2000; although several individuals closed to Kocharyan were arrested, they were released months later, and no evidence was found implicating Kocharyan or anyone besides the five attackers in the shooting. Kocharyan's predecessor Levon Ter-Petrosyan repeatedly accused him and Serzh Sargsyan of being complicit in the 1999 shooting in his campaign speeches before the 2008 presidential election.