Five new members and new chair to be elected to Supreme Electoral Council

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The terms of five members of the 11-member Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) are expiring on January 24, 2023. The State Council and the Court of Cassation will be electing a total of five new members to replace them. Then six remaining and five new members will be electing the new chairperson of the board by a secret vote.

The elections in the two supreme courts will be held in the second week of this month.

Then the election for the new chairperson will be held following the oath-taking ceremony of the new members.

Each one of Ahmet Yener, Mahmut Akgün, Ekrem Özübek, Orhan Usta, Ali Ürker, and Battal Öğüt, whose terms are continuing, and the new members will be able to stand in the election for the chairperson of the board.

Muharrem Akkaya, who is serving since 2016 and who is the current chairperson of the board, is one of the members whose term is expiring on January 24, 2022.

Controversial decisions

YSK is the highest electoral authority in Türkiye.

There are 11 members of the board elected from the supreme courts who have voting rights and four representatives of political parties represented in the parliament, who can submit requests or objections to the board, but who do not have any voting rights.

A most controversial decision by YSK was the lifting of the obligation to have a seal on ballot papers and envelopes, which was given during the counting of the votes in the April 16, 2017 referendum following the request from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The decision was highly controversial since it is a legal obligation that the ballot papers and envelopes have to be sealed first in the morning before the votes are cast by the citizens and in the presence of members of the balloting committee.

Sadi Güven was the chairperson of the board in 2017 and he had said "As long as there is a watermark on the ballots, then it is fine"

In response to this CHP Representative to the YSK Mehmet Hadimi Yakupoğlu said, "We didn't say the ballot papers were fake or lacking watermark. We said you prevented the detection of invalid votes. If the unsealed ballots were counted, then there would be a different outcome. How do you abolish the present law right after the votes started to be counted?"

Another very controversial decision of YSK was in the latest local elections.

Ekrem İmamoğlu, a member of the main opposition CHP, won the election for the mayor of İstanbul on March 31, 2019, by a narrow margin.

YSK ruled that the election should be repeated. İmamoğlu comfortably won the repeat election on June 24, 2019. (HA/PE)