Electoral lists unchanged for Istanbul revote: Supreme Election Council chair

ANKARA

The voter lists from the recent local elections will remain unchanged in the upcoming rerun of elections in Istanbul, Supreme Election Council (YSK) chair Sadi Güven has said.   

All eligible voters who cast their ballots in the March 31 municipal elections will be able to do so again in the do-over vote to elect Istanbul’s metropolitan mayor, he stated.

Güven stressed that only the official committees presiding over ballot boxes would be changed to consist only of civil servants — as is required by law — and that the electoral lists had already been shared with the participating political parties.     

On May 6, the YSK decided a do-over mayoral election in Istanbul slated for June 23 over the appeal of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) objection to the metropolitan municipality poll results in Istanbul.      

The YSK representative of the AKP, Recep Özel, said the decision was based on the fact that some officials presiding over ballot boxes in the province during the elections were not civil servants as is required by law.  

The AKP and its ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) had appealed to the YSK seeking the annulment and renewal of the Istanbul municipal elections, arguing that there were fraud and severe irregularities that impacted the election results.

Millions of Turkish voters cast their votes nationwide on March 31 in local elections to choose mayors, city council members, and other officials.

The AKP’s candidate Binali Yıldırım lost against the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, trailing by around 13,000 votes behind his rival on March 31.