Turkey’s supreme election board to file criminal complaint against main opposition CHP leader

ANKARA

Turkey’s Supreme Election Board (YSK) announced May 3 that it will file a criminal complaint against main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu over the latter’s remarks about the election watchdog. 

The YSK’s decision came after an unscheduled meeting on May 3. 

“It has been decided that criminal complaints will be filed in the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office against the concerned individuals for pointing the YSK chairman and its members as targets and for statements with criminal content,” it said in a statement.

On May 2, Kılıçdaroğlu slammed the YSK and some judges at a party parliamentary group meeting in Ankara. 

He said the 10 YSK members who voted against the CHP’s appeal requesting the repeal of the 16 April referendum were “gang members.”

“The 10 judges working at YSK did not abide by the laws. Those who do not abide by the legislation and give decisions which are not in line with the legislation are called gang in our law,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“The 10 judges sitting there and making decisions are not judges, but instead they constitute the gang of YSK,” he said.    

The YSK decision to accept unstamped ballot papers “unless it can be proved that they were brought from outside the voting room” sparked a major debate on the legitimacy of the results of the referendum, in which the “yes” campaign emerged as the winner with 51.4 percent of the votes.

The CHP and the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the third largest party in parliament, later appealed to the watchdog for the annulment of the referendum, arguing that unsealed ballot papers and envelopes were counted in open violation of the law.   

The YSK stated on April 19 that it inspected appeals from the two parties in parliament, as well as the Patriotic Party (VP), and rejected them all, with only one affirmative vote from its 11 members.