After voters’ efforts have uncovered irregularities in favour of the ruling People’s Alliance, particularly in the Kurdish-majority regions, the deadline for appeals to Turkey’s 14 May election results came to a close on Wednesday at 17:00 local time. Some appeals requesting a recount of certain votes are currently pending a decision.
Members of the leading parties in the two opposition blocs, the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party and the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) have found irregularities in the official counts of hundreds of ballot boxes so far, raising concerns of fraud attempts, despite the conventionally transparent electoral system of Turkey and opposition’s extensive measures taken for electoral security.
Deutsche Welle headlined the Green Left Party’s objections to ballot results, claiming their votes were transferred to other parties by Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council (YSK), which had proved to succumb to the government’s manoeuvring and pressure in the 2017 referendum and the 2019 local elections.
DW article also quoted the Twitter hashtag #YeşilSolPartininOylarıNerede (where did Green Left votes disappear?), along with the left-wing party’s post that addressed YSK “to rectify these inaccuracies, instead of boasting about the secure conduct of the elections”.
Other trending hashtags of #oylaryenidensayılsın (Let the votes be recounted) #oyunasahipçıktürkiye (Stand up for your vote, Turkey), #YskİtirazSüresiniUzat (Extend the objection period, YSK) and the related tweets that have reached nearly a million within a few hours on 17 May were quoted at BBC News, questioning their accuracy and whether their claims would affect the overall outcome of the polls.
BBC featured the statements of Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki, the YSK representative of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, which participated in the elections under the banner of the Green Left due to the risk of closure, that they have managed to correct over a thousand ballot result records nationwide thanks to their objections.