As the March 2024 local elections in Turkey approach, accusations of pro-government officials tampering with voter lists have come to the fore.
On Saturday, Ali Bozan, a Green Left Party MP, addressed the alleged involvement of local authorities in a campaign to influence the upcoming local elections in the southern province of Mersin.
Bozan said that local media had reported that officials from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had committed voter fraud by changing their registered home addresses in a district of the city.
“Interfering with the will of the people is theft and a crime,” Bozan said, addressing those who might try to replace voters.
According to the allegations, there are plans to identify vacant houses in some districts of Mersin and to move voters into these houses with the intention of making them vote for the AKP in the local elections.
Bozan stressed that none of the AKP officials involved in the allegations have denied them so far.
On Friday, journalist Nevşin Mengü also reported allegations of voter list manipulation in the Kurdish-majority eastern province of Ağrı (Agirî). According to Mengü’s report, officials in a village near the Iranian border were allegedly pressured to change their registered addresses to the centre of Ağrı in order to prevent the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) from winning in the region.