the capitol yerevan may look gloomy shrouded in december fog but on the streets there is real hope among armenians that this election could mark the advent of real democratic change. for more i'm joined by journalist joshua good chere who is in the capital yerevan joshua what's the turn up a mike so far now to some other stories making news around the world. leading russian human rights activist mood miller alexei uber has died she was ninety one and among the last soviet era dissidents still active in russia and next year was expelled from the communist party in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight for highlighting soviet human rights abuses she continued to hold the kremlin to its human rights organizations until the end. china has demanded canada release arrested huawei executive among one job all face consequences mung is being held in vancouver faces extradition to the united states where she is accused of violating sanctions on iran on friday she appeared before a court which adjourned a decision on whether or not to allow biol. france is reeling after another saturday of violent

the capitol yerevan may look gloomy shrouded in december fog but on the streets there is real hope among armenians that this election could mark the advent of real democratic change joining me now for more from the capital you have on is john this joshua who's following the story for us joshua what has been the turnout like so far. as a vote two pm local time it was a twenty four and a half percent turnout which interesting is quite a bit less actually it's almost ten percent last that it was in the previous parliamentary elections just last year was this not the void that people waiting for is this uprising there for the stomach. yeah i'm a little surprised that people that i've talked to have suggested that maybe you know the old regime was notorious for using various unsavory methods for getting people to vote for them like bribery or organized government workers you know to go to the polls together and so now that that's not happening. that's that's their early speculation for why the turnout is is so much lower than it was before now the opposition is claiming that the polls were ca

the capitol yerevan may look gloomy shrouded in december fog but on the street there is real hope among armenians that this election could mark the advent of real democratic change. and for more i'm joined now by journalist joshua kuchera he is in the capital yerevan high that joshua we have the first preliminary results coming in what are you hearing that. well it looks like from the other preliminary results which are quite early at this point they're more or less tracking what we expected what opinion polls were saying and that's that. the arms my step alliance is winning a pretty commanding victory. i don't think we'll know complete results for a while now but everyone expected in these results are showing that he's going to have the the overwhelming majority in parliament and what about voter turnout how how's that looking. that's been interesting we do have more concrete numbers on that the central election commission announced the turnout was forty nine percent which compared to the last parliamentary elections which was last year that was sixty one percent so it's down quite a b

the capitol yerevan may look gloomy shrouded in december fog but on the streets there is real hope among armenians that this election could mark the advent of real democratic change. for more i'm joined by journalist joshua can chair who's in the capital gang or of on my joshua now as we just heard counting is underway what is the expected outcome. well the pashtuns my step alliance is expected to win a huge victory i mean opinion polls had him at around seventy percent of the vote the polls aren't necessarily super reliable here but analysts that i've talked to said they expect anywhere between sixty to eighty percent of the vote to go to him so the drama has kind of will be the other parties in the parliament. this is especially interesting because a lot of the parties really are actually also quite loyal to partially on and some voters that i talked to and planted to vote for other parties said they wanted to do so because they actually supported us and you know according to the constitution here. at least three parties have to make it into the parliament. even if the they don't make

the capitol yerevan may look gloomy shrouded in december fog but on the streets there is real hope among armenians that this election could mark the advent of real democratic change for more i'm joined by journalist joshua good chere who is in the capital joshua what's the turnout pay mike so far. well as of two pm which is a local time which is the last results that were announced it was a little more than twenty four percent of eligible voters to cast their ballots interesting is quite a bit down from the last parliamentary elections last year when when the corresponding figure was thirty three percent. the opposition is claiming the polls will cold too soon giving them no time prepared to prepare so they have a point. not really it's a it's a fairly disingenuous argument on their art that the main opposition has been making this claim is the republican party which is the former ruling party and it was the biggest political machine in armenia and and if anybody would would be ready for reelection this should be them it was kind of a pretext for them to argue against these elections whi

the capitol yerevan may look gloomy shrouded in december fog but on the street there is real hope among armenians that this election could mark the advent of real democratic change and for more i'm joined now by journalist and joshua cooke chatter who is in the capital yerevan welcome joshua what is the expected outcome of this vote. well as your report suggested the polls show. my stuff alliance with a huge victory and we we still don't have any official results yet even for them in our results but opinion polls showed him getting around seventy percent analysts that i've talked to said it could be anywhere from sixty to eighty percent but everyone agrees that it's going to be a landslide victory for him and what challenges will passion young face if he does indeed day now parliamentary majority. well the challenges are considerable. the economic problems that our media has are deep longstanding you know dating from the. i mean is it a balance from the soviet union in that you know anyone. has been making big promises about changing that talking about bringing in foreign investment new