Varuzhan Babajanyan
Varuzhan Babajanyan is the founder and owner of Past newspaper and has been involved in politics on multiple occasions. In the 2017 National Assembly elections, he was nominated as a rating candidate for the Tavush region from the Tsarukyan bloc but was not a member of the party. Although the Tsarukyan bloc entered parliament, Babajanyan did not pass, holding 41st place on the list. Before the 2017 elections, Babajanyan announced on his Facebook page that he was resigning from the post of chairman of the editorial board of Past newspaper.
In 2018, Babajanyan announced he was resigning from the post of editor of Past newspaper, proposing the candidacy of Artak Tshagharyan for that position. Babajanyan left this role to participate in the 2018 snap parliamentary elections, again running as a non-partisan candidate in the Tavush region from the Prosperous Armenia party. He was not elected as a deputy.
Babajanyan participated in the 2021 snap parliamentary elections as a candidate from the Prosperous Armenia party, which failed to enter parliament. The Central Election Commission's electoral list identified him as a party member. However, according to MOM Team research, Babajanyan stated that he was not a party member and participated as a non-partisan candidate, creating a discrepancy in his party affiliation status.
In addition to Past newspaper, Babajanyan founded the website orer.am. Another website, oratert.am, was also registered under his name.
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| Active Transparency | company/channel informs proactively and comprehensively about its ownership, data is constantly updated and easily verifiable | |
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| Meta Data | The newspaper's financial statements for any given year are not available in the public domain. The financial statements are not published on the website past.am, which belongs to the same company. On the last page of the newspaper, the editor's name and information on the number of copies printed are provided. The MOM Team submitted information requests to the media outlet owner. Varuzhan Babajanyan responded verbally and subsequently provided the private enterprise's annual financial report for 2024, including information on the number of employees. The company also provided the biography of the newspaper's editor, Artak Tshagharyan. Babajanyan's biography was compiled based on information obtained from open sources. | |
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