In the 4 October 2004 presidential election, Ankvab supported Bagapsh's candidacy following his own exclusion by the Central Election Commission; he was subsequently appointed as Prime Minister by Bagapsh in February 2005.
Ankvab survived four attempts on his life from 2005 to 2010. He was appointed acting President of Abkhazia after President Bagapsh underwent an operation on May 21, 2011. Following the operation, Bagapsh died on May 29, 2011 and Ankvab served as Acting President until winning election in his own right later in 2011.
Born in the Abkhazian capital Sukhumi, Ankvab graduated with a degree in law from the Rostov State University in southern Russia and worked as an official of the Komsomol for many years. He served between 1975-1981 as an official in the Justice Ministry of the Abkhaz ASSR. He joined the executive of the central committee of the Georgian Communist Party in 1981, being promoted to the post of deputy interior minister of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1984. He held this post until the end of Communist rule in Georgia in 1990.
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Georgia's achievement of independence in 1991, Ankvab became a member of the Abkhaz Supreme Soviet. He was appointed interior minister of Abkhazia's separatist government during the 1992-1993 conflict with the Georgian central government. Following the Abkhaz victory, he moved to Moscow in 1994 and became a successful businessman.
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Ankvab returned to Abkhazian politics in 2000, setting up the movement Aitaira ("Revival") in opposition to the government of President Vladislav Ardzinba. In 2004 he announced that he would run for president, but was disqualified as ineligible on the grounds that he could not speak Abkhaz (a requirement for public office in the republic) and had lived in Abkhazia for too short a time. Ankvab decided to support Bagapsh instead and was crucial to the latter's electoral success. His appointment as prime minister was widely predicted.
After Bagapsh's unexpected death after lung surgery, Ankvab became an acting president. He was nominated for presidency by a initiative group for a snap presidential elections held in the region on August 26, 2011. During the election campaign, on August 15, supporters of Ankvab's opponent Sergei Shamba organized an outdoor screening of a video interview of Moscow-based retired Georgian general Tengiz Kitovani, a Georgian commander during the 1990s war in Abkhazia, in which he claimed that Ankvab had cooperated with the Georgian intelligence service during the conflict. Ankvab accused Shamba of resorting to black PR, while Shamba's campaign team issued a statement calling on the prosecutor's office to investigate Ankvab's war-time activities. According to the preliminary results Ankvab garnered up to 55% of votes, defeating tShamba and ex-vice president and opposition candidate Raul Khajimba.
Ankvab has survived four assassination attempts since he took office in 2005. In the last attack, on July 9, 2007, he was lightly injured when his vehicle was fired upon from a grenade cup discharger on the road between Sukhumi and Gudauta. The Abkhaz People's Assembly called government to timely investigate the attack and accused "destructive forces active both inside and outside Abkhazia" of trying to destabilize the situation in Abkhazia. The de facto Abkhaz Interior Ministry has declared a 500,000-Russian ruble reward for information leading to the capture of the attackers, who are thought to be local. There are a variety of suggested motives for the attack. An influential[citation needed] Georgian MP Konstantine Gabashvili accused the Russian special services of trying to get rid of Ankvab, who had suggested inventorying real estate in Abkhazia and reexamining all illegal real estate transactions, including those involving Russian companies. On September 23, 2010, Ankvab was injured when his house came under grenade launcher attack. He received fragmentation injuries to his arm and leg.
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