News - Tigran Avinyan has been elected as the new mayor of Yerevan

Tirgan Avinyan, the only candidate for mayor of Yerevan, was elected mayor at Tuesday’s inaugural session of the new Yerevan Council of Elders. He has become the 14th mayor of Yerevan in the history of independent Armenia. Armine Vardanyan, head of the organizational department of the Yerevan Municipality, presented the respective voting results, noted that 37 out of the 65 council members participated in the voting, there were no invalid ballots, 32 council members voted for Tigran Avinyan, whereas 5 others—against. Subsequently, Vardanyan declared Avinyan the new mayor of Yerevan, and this was followed by applause. A total of 33 votes are needed to be elected mayor of Yerevan. But since Tigran Avinyan was the only nominated candidate for the mayor, he needed only 27 votes to be elected. After the announcing of the voting results, Avinyan approached the podium and thanked the residents of Yerevan and the members of the Council of Elders. "I want to express special thanks to the members of the Council of Elders who elected the mayor. I promise to serve Yerevan, the Republic of Armenia, based on all the principles we announced in 2018," said Tigran Avinyan. Earlier, Armenian News-NEWS.am reported that according to the results of the Yerevan Council of Elders elections held on September 17, the seats at the newly elected council were distributed as follows: Civil Contract Party - 24 seats National Progress Party - 14 seats Mother Armenia bloc of parties - 12 seats Republic Party - 8 seats Public Voice Party - 7 seats The Mother Armenia bloc, led by opposition ex-MP Andranik Tevanyan, and National Progress Party, led by former mayor Hayk Marutyan, had announced that they will not participate in the first session of the new Council of Elders so that there will be no quorum, and therefore the Council of Elders is dissolved and new elections are held. But the Public Voice Party, led by well-known blogger Vardan Ghukasyan, participated in the session, as a result of which there was quorum, and the session was held. The ruling Civil Contract Party and the Republic Party had stated that they will participate in the first session.