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Turkey starts Istanbul vote recount after Erdogan’s party appeals
ISTANBUL, April 3, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Turkish electoral authorities on
Wednesday began recounting votes from Istanbul districts after President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP challenged tallies showing an opposition
candidate narrowly won a weekend local election.
The AKP won most votes nationwide in Sunday’s municipal ballot, but results
also showed the party lost the capital Ankara and the country’s economic hub
Istanbul in one of its worst setbacks in a decade and a half in power.
AKP officials on Tuesday filed a challenge with electoral authorities
saying they had found irregularities in ballots in Ankara and Istanbul.
“The district branches of the electoral board in Istanbul decided to
recount the ballots in eight districts after the appeals yesterday,” Supreme
Election Board chief Sadi Guven told reporters.
He said some of the district branches had already started rechecking
ballots, most of which were votes that had been rejected as invalid.
AKP officials had said there was a huge discrepancy between ballots cast at
polling stations and data sent to election authorities.
Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, was a key election prize for Erdogan and
he presented former premier and loyalist Binali Yildirim to run as the party
candidate for mayor.
Erdogan, himself a former Istanbul mayor, had campaigned hard in the city.
But the ruling party was stung by the economy with Turkey in recession for
the first time in a decade and inflation in double digits.
– Narrowing gap –
Istanbul was a tight race and both Yildirim and the opposition CHP
candidate Ekrem Imamoglu declared victory when tallies showed them in a dead
heat.
Electoral authorities on Monday said Imamoglu was ahead by 28,000 votes
with nearly all ballot boxes tallied, prompting AKP officials to challenge
the result.
“The world is watching us, watching the results of our city’s election,”
Imamoglu told reporters on Wednesday, asking that he be handed his mandate as
soon as possible.
“I say clearly: Don’t let Turkey’s credibility be destroyed by 3 or 4
people acting like they are kids who had their toys taken away from them.”
But the AKP was fighting back. Deputy chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz claimed the
difference had now slipped to less than 20,000 votes between Imamoglu and
Yildirim.
Imamoglu had 48.79 percent of the votes while Yildirim had 48.52 percent,
Anadolu news agency reported on Tuesday, citing preliminary results.
It reported close to 300,000 votes had been annulled in Istanbul voting on
election day.
A loss in Istanbul would be especially sensitive for Erdogan, who grew up
in the city’s working-class Kasimpasa neighbourhood, and liked to tell AKP
rank-and-file that victory in the city was like winning Turkey.
– Electoral ‘coup’ claim –
Asked about the AKP’s challenge on Tuesday, a US State Department
spokesman urged parties to accept election results.
“I would say that free and fair elections are essential to any democracy
and this means acceptance of legitimate election results are essential. And
we expect nothing less from Turkey,” deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said
in a briefing.
Turkey’s presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun responded,
urging “all parties, including foreign governments, to respect the legal
process and refrain from taking any steps that may be construed as meddling
in Turkey’s internal affairs,” Anadolu reported.
Ties between NATO allies United States and Turkey have been frayed recently
by several differences, including Ankara’s purchase of a Russian missile
system, a deal for US-made F-35 fighters and disagreements over US support
for Kurdish fighters in Syria’s war.
Some pro-government newspapers on Wednesday branded the Istanbul defeat an
as electoral “coup” similar to the failed coup Erdogan survived in 2016. That
bid was blamed by Turkish officials on a US-based Muslim preacher, Fethullah
Gulen.
“An Istanbul coup has been staged in the March 31 elections,” wrote Yeni
Safak pro-government newspaper columnist Ibrahim Karagul, calling for a new
vote.
“A coup has been staged through the elections, through the ballot boxes.”
BSS/AFP/RY/1808 hrs