HDP Brings İstanbul Election Rerun into Parliamentary Agenda

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Grup Deputy Chairs Fatma Kurtulan and Saruhan Oluç have submitted parliamentary questions for the claims that constituted the basis for the annulment of the local elections in İstanbul.

After the March 31 polls, İstanbul elections were canceled unlawfully, while the objections that could possibly result in loss of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were rejected, the MPs asserted in the question they submitted to the Speaker's Office of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM).

"All of our objections are rejected"

The parliamentary question said that before the elections, their objections against the irregularities in the voter lists that could change the results in favor of the government party were accepted.

The MPs also underpinned they found irregularities such as "moving voters", "moving and combining ballot boxes", and registering imaginary voters in the places where no one lives in the southeastern region, especially in the provinces of Şırnak, Hakkari, Siirt, Muş, and Bitlis.

"That being the case, almost all of our objections regarding the invalid votes were rejected by the election councils," the MPs said.

"YSK destroyed its own reason of being"

The MPs said in the parliamentary question that İstanbul elections did not conclude because of the "ridiculous objections" by the AKP.

The Supreme Election Council (YSK) annulled the elections on the ground that "225 ballot box council chairpersons and 3,500 ballot box officers are not public officers."

"The party that did not make an objection in the period of establishing the councils and in the period of objections requested a rerun of the election when the election resulted against it.

"The YSK, by accepting the objection although the period of objections expired and the elections were concluded, destroyed its own reason of being.

"Not repeating the elections of district municipalities, council memberships and mukhtar polls although they were done by the same ballot council members is the most important evidence for this." (AS/VK)