Tülay Hatimoğulları, the co-chair of the Kurdish-led Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), said on Sunday that the local elections in several Kurdish-majority cities were won by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its far-right ally with the votes of non-residents, namely large groups of soldiers and police officers who were brought into these cities for the elections.
The DEM Party co-chair also celebrated the initiative of a constituent who has become somewhat of a local hero after questioning the identity of voters as they queued at the polling station in Şırnak (Şirnex). Thousands of military-aged men were bused into the city to vote at the city’s polling stations, while locals looked on exclaiming, “Shame on you, speak up, where are you from?”
Hatimogulları, speaking at the vigil started three days earlier by the party in the Kurdish-majority city, declared the elections in such places as “illegitimate” and “stolen”.
She said:
“They tried to steal the elections in so many places. The Supreme Election Council who rejected our application for a recount in the city of Bitlis and other places will now review our application for Sirnak. We are calling on the Council once again to stop acting like the crutch of AKP.”
DEM argues that the AKP candidate in Sirnak, who received 18,033 votes against DEM Party’s 15,553, received most of its votes from the the military and police units who were dispatched to the area solely for the vote.
Both DEM Party and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) earlier documented that the number of votes cast by the troops in the eastern city of Kars was more than the votes that enabled the candidate of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) to win against the DEM Party.
