With twelve days to go before voters in Turkey head to the polls to elect the country’s next president and parliament, rivalry is intensifying between the Turkish government and the opposition.
On Monday, while political parties and candidates continued campaigning across several provinces, the Kurdish electoral alliance announced its support for the opposition’s joint presidential candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
* Updated at 5:30 pm (CET)
Kılıçdaroğlu vowes to end practice of government-appointed mayors
The opposition’s joint presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was welcomed with great enthusiasm and a large crowd in the Kurdish-majority eastern province of Van (Wan). In addition to Kılıçsaroğlu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) flags, pro-Kurdish Green Left Party flags were also displayed by people at the rally. https://artigercek.com/politika/kilicdaroglu-vanda-kayyim-denen-garabet-uygulamayi-tumuyle-bitirecegim-248290h
Kılıçdaroğlu promised that no one would continue to be marginalised on the grounds of belief or identity, in the event of his election as president, and added, “I will end the strange practice of government-appointed mayors.”
The Turkish government has been deposing elected Kurdish mayors and appointing its own affiliates as mayors in Kurdish-majority cities since 2014. Recently, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu boasted about government-appointed mayors during the election campaign.
Demirtaş calls on voters in Germany
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) jailed former co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş addressed Turkish citizen voters that live in Germany ahead of the 14 May elections. “You will determine the fate of this election, especially you. Even a single vote is very, very important. Use your vote for change,” said Demirtaş.
State-run TV broadcast AKP-led electoral bloc 85 times more than opposition
State-run broadcaster TRT featured the ruling AKP-led People’s Alliance 85 times more than the opposition’s Nation Alliance in live broadcasts during the one-month election period. According to the data of Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK), the People’s Alliance appeared on TRT for a total of 59 hours, 11 minutes and 6 seconds, while the Nation Alliance appeared for just 42 minutes and 58 seconds, Artı Gerçek reported.
Ministry sets up election monitoring system parallel to Turkey’s official authority
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) found that the Interior Ministry had set up an election monitoring system parallel to Turkey’s official election authority, the Supreme Election Board (YSK).
“The Interior Ministry has requested from all governorships the creation of an election monitoring module,” said CHP’s election and legal affairs official, Muharrem Erkek, in a press conference. According to the request, the ministry will assign between three and 10 staff for each district, depending on the population.
Stating that this was the first time they had encountered such a situation in an election, Erkek suggested that the Ministry of Interior would work in parallel with the YSK and district governorships would work in parallel with the district election boards for the government in the elections.
“The Minister of Interior Affairs continues to act like a minister of criminal affairs,” said Erkek, and called on officials to “disobey this unlawful order, not be a partner in this crime.”
Opposition works for security measures on election day
Meanwhile, the opposition continues to work on security measures for election day. CHP is on red alert against possible power and internet outages and cyber-attacks on the day of the elections.
The CHP’s data collection centres were equipped with servers, radios and generators against possible power and internet outages and cyber-attacks.
In addition, the Nation Alliance, the main opposition bloc of six parties, will have poll watchers at each of Turkey’s almost 192,000 polling stations on election day, CHP official Oğuz Kaan Salıcı told BBC Turkish.
In order to ensure fair and secure elections, Salıcı said that in addition to watchers, lawyers and observers, IT experts will also be on duty. 500,000 people have been mobilised for election day, said the official.
He also said they did not trust the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA) and emphasised that the initial information coming from AA could be especially misleading.
The alliance has set up its own vote-counting system and will transfer every wet-signed report from the ballot box to this system.
Electoral blocs continue rallies
Turkish president and presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Alliance Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will hold two rallies on Tuesday in southern Antalya and central Konya.
The opposition Nation Alliance presidential candidate and Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kılıçdaroğlu will speak at rallies in the eastern provinces of Ağrı and Van.
Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party Co-chair Pervin Buldan will attend a rally of the left-wing Freedom and Democracy Alliance in northwest Kocaeli.
HDP Co-Chair Mithat Sancar will meet with artists and publishers in the capital Ankara.
Kurdish alliance declares support for Kılıçdaroğlu
The Kurdish Alliance for Freedom and Democracy will support Kılıçdaroğlu in Turkey’s presidential elections. The alliance was formed by the Green Left Party and other pro-Kurdish political parties.
The alliance declared open support for Kılıçdaroğlu and said, “Turkey will either be dragged rapidly towards a great abyss with the current authoritarian, arbitrary, one-man regime, or it will enter a process of change, normalisation and democracy. We will be on the side of change, normalisation and democracy.”
Increase in external votes
The Supreme Board of Elections (YSK) announced that as of 1 May the number of votes cast in foreign missions and customs gates was 713,609.
Compared to the first five days of the 2018 elections, there has been a big increase in the proportion of voters voting abroad with 37 percent in Germany, 71 percent in Austria and 60 percent in France.
Voting abroad opened on 27 April and will continue until 9 May, with nearly 3.5 million expatriate citizens of Turkey eligible to vote globally.
HDP warns against provocations
The HDP Central Executive Committee said that the pro-Kurdish party was targeted in Turkish media following the incident in front of the Islamist Free Cause Party’s (Hüda-Par) election stand in the southern city of Mersin, where three people were beaten. The HDP called on its supporters to “be careful against provocations and continue to campaign in a calm and determined manner”.
On Monday, three Hüda-Par members were wounded in a brawl that broke out in front of a stand where Hüda-Par’s parliamentary candidate, who is running under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) list, was campaigning.
“Neither these provocations nor election operations will prevent the rise and victory of our party and the historic defeat of the government,” the HDP said, adding that the ruling bloc, “realising that it will lose, seeks help from deepening social tension and polarisation.”
Islamist partner of AKP doesn’t use female candidate’s photo
A campaign vehicle of the New Welfare Party (YRP), one of the Islamist partners of the AKP-led People’s Alliance, in the northern city of Düzce, did not use a photograph: of the female parliamentary candidate Çiğdem Kulalı Seçkin but instead used only a silhouette.
YRP officials told Diken that Seçkin’s photo was not used upon her own request. However, previously Seçkin’s photo was used in a campaign poster, in which she featured alone.
