Opposition urges top board to conclude election process

ANKARA

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its ally İYİ (Good) Party have called on Turkey’s Supreme Election Board (YSK) to not bow to government pressure and urged the body finalize the results of the local elections held 10 days ago.

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and İYİ Party leader Meral Akşener, both who represent the Nation’s Alliance, urged the YSK to not feel pressured by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The election board will either plunge Turkey into chaos or bring a breath of fresh air to the country with its ruling on the election results, Kılıçdaroğlu said at a joint press conference with Akşener on April 10.

Kılıçdaroğlu rolled out a four-item list calling on the YSK to follow, in the morning of April 10, before officials of the YSK met with AKP members to discuss the elections in Istanbul.

“The YSK must abide by the law and the decisions it has made regarding similar incidents. The YSK has to reject the demands of the losers of the election, who are abusing the power of the state. The YSK has to say stop to those power holders that do not want democracy, but a Turkey that has no elections,” he said.

“The YSK should stay true to its commitment to democracy,” said the CHP leader.

The election watchdog should spoil this “plot,” he said.

This was the second meeting of Akşener and Kılıçdaroğlu after the March 31 elections.

Akşener, for her part, accused the ruling party of fabricating lies about electoral security and irregularities. “If you could not establish security at the ballot boxes, it is your fault,” she said, indirectly addressing the government.

She said the AKP has been in power for the past 17 years, adding that they had assured the elections were carried out amid “spectacular safety.”

“When the AKP wins, there is no fraud, but when an opposition party wins, somehow there is fraud,” she stated.

Akşener said Turkey has suffered from chaos in the last 10 years under the AKP and said the president should hold his party’s executives accountable for their electoral failure, not voters.

“If President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to call someone to account for failure in the polls, then he should speak with his son-in-law and the interior minister,” she said. Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak is Turkey’s finance and treasury minister, who the opposition blames for the country’s economic troubles.