Opposition MP calls on his party to assign three clerks to each ballot box

The Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Gursel Tekin said, on Thursday, that his party should assign at least three polling clerks to each ballot box to prevent election fraud in the upcoming local elections.

Speaking to the news portal Leman Haber, Tekin asserted that “neither CHP members nor the people” have any staying power for an election result like the 2018 general elections.

Fraud allegations

CHP previously accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of conducting fraud by registering a large number of voters multiple times, claiming that the number of people that appeared multiple times on the voters’ lists was as high as 100,000.

Tekin noted that in full democracies “it is the state’s duty to secure the voting process,” suggesting that Turkey is following the Gambia in this respect.

“There was an election in the Gambia. Yahya Jammeh was in power. An extremely authoritarian figure. The election results were not contested even there. The opposition won,” lamented Tekin, asserting that the government responsible for securing the process is often the suspect of fraud.

“Erdogan tells the polling clerks: ‘Do not worry! We have taken every measure for the polls. I call out to all polling clerks: Seek help from the security forces.’ We should beware of what he actually means,” Tekin was quoted as saying.

Erdogan’s 2018 victory announced before final vote count released

Last year, the CHP’s presidential candidate Muharrem Ince’s announcement of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s victory in the run for presidency while the vote count was not yet finalized, met with serious backlash from the opposition.

The Turkish Supreme Electoral Council released the voter lists on January 4, 2019, and since then, numerous fraud allegations have emerged, claiming that voter figures were nipped and tucked in some provinces, and that ‘imaginary voters’ were registered. Some provinces indeed saw an unusual rise of registered voters compared to previous elections, in tandem with the allegations.

The post Opposition MP calls on his party to assign three clerks to each ballot box appeared first on IPA NEWS.

from IPA NEWS https://ipa.news/2019/03/01/opposition-mp-calls-on-his-party-to-assign-three-clerks-to-each-ballot-box/