The Labour and Freedom Alliance has identified irregularities in many ballots in at least six provinces that have resulted in thousands of votes lost for the Green Left Party (YSP). The party has lodged appeals to the electoral board, and stands to win up to six more seats when the objections are resolved.
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which fielded its candidates under the YSP, announced irregularities in Şırnak (Şirnex), Hakkari (Colemêrg), Şanlıurfa (Riha), Batman (Êlih), Mardin (Merdin) and Diyarbakır (Amed) provinces, all located in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast.
Şırnak and Hakkari in particular are known for their high support for the HDP, with more than 80 percent of the vote regularly going to the party’s candidates in almost all elections.
Identified irregularities include YSP’s votes being entered into records as votes for the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which usually has very limited presence in the region.
HDP spokesman Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki had announced vote shifts in the hundreds in many ballots in Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Şırnak, Şanlıurfa, Batman, Adıyaman (Semsûr), Siirt (Sêrt), and Muş (Mûş) earlier in the day.
One of Hakkari’s three seats is currently disputed as the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) objected to the YSP win, while the spokesman told reporters that the objections were fraudulent themselves.
Similarly, in the eastern Erzurum (Erzerom) province, HDP suspects fraudulent objections that will favour the MHP, Tiryaki said, and pointed to local governors attempting to “abuse public resources to take the election away from us”.
Objections in Şanlıurfa resulted in a recount, which shifted one seat from the AKP to the YSP. However, a second recount is underway after AKP members objected to the updated result, Yeni Yaşam newspaper reported. If the AKP’s objection is rejected, YSP will have five seats out of the province’s 12 instead of four.
If YSP’s objections resolve in a favourable manner, the party will win one more seat in Ankara, Diyarbakır and Gaziantep (Dîlok), take back one seat from the fundamentalist HÜDA-PAR in Batman, win a seat in Adıyaman, and possibly win its first seat in the western Aydın province.
