Turkey

Turkey: Ruling AKP’s chief poobah Erdogan manages to negate recent local elections in Istanbul that gave him a stinging defeat…….


 

It’s what the Democrats aim to do in the US each and every time a Republican wins an election…

 

Turkish election board invalidates Istanbul election results

Istanbul: Turkey’s national election board has invalidated the results of local elections in Istanbul that had dealt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political party a narrow but stinging defeat.

Ekrem Imamoglu of the opposition Republican People’s Party placed first by a slim margin in the March 31 mayoral election, defeating the ruling party candidate, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. Erdogan’s conservative and Islamic-based Justice and Development Party then charged that a series of election irregularities made the results illegitimate.

 

The state-run Anadolu Agency said the Supreme Electoral Board revoked Imamoglu’s mandate and called a new election for June 23. As grounds to annul the results, the board said that some ballot station heads were not civil servants as required by law, the news agency said.

 

Yildirim, the loser in the election, said he hoped the decision would lead to “beneficial and beautiful results for Istanbul.”

In a statement to the AP, presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun said: “Having held free and fair elections for nearly seven decades, Turkey will complete this process in a transparent, lawful and orderly manner.”

 

Leaders of the Imamoglu’s main opposition party held an emergency meeting in the capital of Ankara late Monday.

 

Addressing thousands of his supporters in Istanbul, Imamoglu accused the electoral board of bowing to pressure and threats from Erdogan’s party. He vowed to use “democracy” to win back the “rights” that he said were taken away by force. The crowd called for the electoral board members to resign and accused Erdogan of stealing the vote.

 

Erdogan’s party also suffered rare losses in several other cities, including in Ankara, Turkey’s capital.

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