Gayane Melkom Melkomyan has been nominated for the post of Deputy Mayor of Yerevan

According to Hakob Karapetyan, spokesman for the Yerevan Municipality, Gayane Melkom Melkomyan, a lawyer and chairman of the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs of the Yerevan Council of Elders, has been nominated to replace Deputy Mayor Tigran Virabyan.

It should be reminded that the Deputy Mayor of Yerevan Tigran Virabyan informed on December 9^th that he had received an offer from the management of the Public Television to assume the position of the general producer of the company. The candidacy of Gayane Melkom Melkomyan, a member of the “My Step” faction has yet to be approved by the capital’s Council of Elders. The issue is expected to be discussed at the December 22 meeting of the Council of Elders. In case of being appointed Deputy Mayor, she will coordinate the spheres of general education, culture, sports and youth issues.

Gayane Melkomyan made a post on her Facebook page, informing that she accepted the offer to assume the post of Deputy Mayor of Yerevan. “This issue is certainly not among the priorities in the difficult and tense post-war situation, but since it has aroused public interest, I consider it necessary to address it. I received an offer from the mayor of Yerevan to assume the position of deputy mayor to replace Tigran Virabyan. In order to use my maximum abilities for the benefit of the city, I accepted the offer. “It will be discussed at the forthcoming session of the Council of Elders,” she wrote.

It should be noted that lawyer Gayane Melkomyan is from a repatriate family. Born in England. She was four years old when the family decided to settle in Armenia. After the declaration of independence in 1991, the Persian-Armenian Melkomyan family returned to their homeland a few days later. She graduated from the French University in Armenia and studied at McGill University (Canada) with a scholarship funded by the Luys Foundation. Before being elected a member of the Yerevan Council of Elders, Gayane was recognized by many as a founding member of the “We Are the Owners of This City” civic initiative for the protection of public green spaces.

It is noteworthy that 21%  out of 65 members or 32% of Yerevan Council of Elders are women, a fact that has not affected the leadership of the municipality, which so far consists entirely of men. The mayor of Yerevan and his four deputies are men, all three of the mayor’s advisers are men, the mayor’s assistant, the press secretary, the chief of staff, the chief architect of the city are also men. Women appear only in the positions of heads of departments, and only three out of 22 heads of departments of the municipality are women. To complete the picture, all 12 administrative districts of the capital are headed by men. Only one of the 19 deputy heads of the administrative district is a woman.

Full text in Armenian