Career
On March 20, 2009, he became a chairman of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, based in exile in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Born in Ochamchira, Abkhaz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, Gvazava graduated Sukhumi Pedagogical Institute with a degree in biology in 1974 and continued his postgraduate training at the Institute of Medical Genetics in Moscow from 1976 to 1981. In 1982, he acquired a position of docent at the Sukhumi State University and, in 1991, he was elected to the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, a local legislature.
Gvazava retained both his academic and legislative positions when the Georgian factions of both university and the Supreme Council was forced to relocate to Tbilisi in the aftermath of the 1992-1993 war in Abkhazia.
In 1995, he was further elected Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia-in-exile. On March 20, 2009, he became a chairman of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia.
He was re-elected on April 7, 2014.
