The Yerevan Council of Elders has unanimously elected Taron Markaryan as the Mayor of Yerevan, News Armenia reports.
The election process was initiated by the City Council of Elders on November 4. Earlier reports said that the Republican Party of Armenia had introduced Vice-Mayor Taron Markaryan as candidate for the position on October 31.
Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan resigned in on October 28 due to change of job and personal reasons.
Head of the fraction of the Republican Party, Derenik Dumanyan, called Markaryan the most suitable candidate for the position. Markaryan himself thanked the party, its chairman, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and said that he has a good understanding of the job.
Taron Markaryan, a son of former PM Andranik Markaryan who died in 2007, had been born in Yerevan on April 17, 1978. He left school N177 and entered the Armenian Agriculture Academy in 1995. Markaryan graduated at the academy in 2001 and received a master's degree in engineering as a specialist in agricultural mechanization.
He was a chief specialist and then head of the section for regional subdivision of the State Committee for Inventory of Real Estate at the Yerevan District of Nor-Nork in 2001-2003.
Markaryan became deputy head of the Agency for Management of Bioresources of the Armenian Ministry for Environment. He was elected in 2005 and re-elected in 2008 as head of the Avan community. He became the deputy mayor of Yerevan in 2009.
Markaryan has been chairing the Board of Trustees of the Khut Charity Fund since 2005. He has been a member of the Republican Party since 1996 and a member of its council since 2006.
He has been supervising the Avan Council of the territorial organization of the party since 1998.
Markaryan was awarded with the Anania Shirakatsi Medal by the Armenian president, the Garegin Nzhde Medal of the Defense Ministry, the Golden Medal awarded by Yerevan mayor, the Golden Medal of the Armenian Agrarian University, the Golden Medal for the memory of Frityof Nansen and the Golden Medal "Eagle of Mountainous Armenia", the Order of Armenian Voluntaries "Yerkrap" - "Sparapet Vasgen Sargsyan".
