The local election board in Bitlis (Bedlîs), Turkey, has denied the recount appeal of the main pro-Kurdish party in a razor-thin race marked by claims of vote misallocation.
Despite the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) narrow victory amidst 2,013 invalid ballots, the board’s decision parallels past election grievances in Kurdish-majority regions, igniting calls for electoral justice.
The Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) claimed that in Sunday’s elections where the AKP won by a margin of 198 votes, there was substantial evidence of vote tampering, with 2,013 votes declared invalid and allegations of DEM Party votes being wrongly attributed to other parties in several polling stations’ records.
The refusal of the Bitlis election board to revisit the vote count, despite the documented irregularities, echoes past grievances from the DEM Party, which recalled similar issues in Muş during the 2019 Local Elections. Back then, thousands of votes intended for the DEM Party were either erroneously transferred to the non-candidate Homeland Party or nullified altogether. Despite multiple reported discrepancies in the records and surrounded by thousands of special operations police, the election board’s response was to ignore the appeals and endorse the AKP candidate.
This pattern of discrepancies in vote counting has prompted calls from the DEM Party and their supporters for the Bitlis election board to follow the example of Ardahan, where a decision was made to redo the elections after the Republican People’s Party (CHP) led by only 174 votes. The community of Bitlis, along with the DEM Party, is advocating for the same standard to be applied consistently, without the double standards previously experienced.
The steadfast refusal to recount the votes, even in light of evident inconsistencies, has further fuelled discontent among Bitlis citizens and the DEM Party.
Using the hashtags #BitlisBizim (#BitlisIsOurs) and #BedlisYaMeYe, they protested what they perceive as a compromised electoral integrity.
