Deputy PM: Turkey’s state-run agency ‘never manipulates election results’
ISTANBUL
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency “never manipulates election results,” Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ said on June 22.
Bozdağ’s remarks came two days after Anadolu Agency’s final election results were displayed during a program on government-friendly private broadcaster TVNET, showing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan winning the June 24 election with 53 percent of the votes and opposition candidates lagging far behind.
Opposition voices suggested that the “accident” proved that the state-run agency would manipulate results on polling day.
Turkish opposition, NGOs form alternative platform for vote count
“They are slandering Anadolu Agency and they will have to give an account of their defamations to the judiciary,” Bozdağ told reporters in the Central Anatolian province of Yozgat.
Anadolu Agency issued a statement on June 21 in which it said it was being “subjected to baseless allegations” and claiming that what was displayed on TVNET was a “test broadcast.”
“These and similar applications, known as ‘mock data unit testing’ in the broadcasting world, are repeated many times before almost every important broadcast ... During the test the previous day, the data sent to media organizations were based on the results of the last election, and random voting was done for parties and candidates who did not participate in the election,” it said.
The agency also said legal procedures were being initiated “against people and institutions who brought up allegations against our institution on purpose that are contrary to the truth.”
