Turkish opposition condemns election board ‘mobsters’ as they order re-rerun of Istanbul vote
Turkey’s opposition accused the country’s election board members of being “mobsters” under the control of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, after they voided an opposition victory in the Istanbul mayor’s race and ordered a re-run of the election.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) narrowly won the Istanbul’s mayor’s election in March, dealing a serious defeat to Mr Erdoğan and seizing control of an office he once held himself.
Mr Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) claimed the result had been rigged and this week the Turkish election board granted their request to cancel the CHP’s victory and run the election again in June.
The CHP warned that the decision was another dangerous step towards authoritarianism in Turkey and an assault on the country’s long history of fair elections.
Seven election board members voted to re-run the Istanbul race while four voted against.
“Those seven men of the election board are members of the mob,” said Kemal Kilicdaroğlu, the leader of the CHP. “Those seven so-called judges, those mobsters, acted through backchannels with certain elements of the AKP. They’ve cancelled the election.”
Mr Erdoğan said the decision would help put to rest allegations of corruption in the March 31 election. “We see this decision as the best step that will strengthen our will to solve problems within the framework of democracy and law,” he said.
The board’s decision drew criticism from Heiko Mass, Germany’s foreign minister, who said it was “not transparent and not comprehensible”.
“This outrageous decision highlights how Erdoğan’s Turkey is drifting towards a dictatorship,” said Guy Verhofstadt, a senior member of the European parliament.
The CHP initially considered boycotting the new elections, which will be held on June 23, but announced Tuesday that they would vigorously contest them. Ekrem Imamoğlu, the CHP’s victorious candidate in March, will run again.
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The liberal secular party appealed to other Turkish opposition parties to rally around Mr Imamoğlu in a unified democratic front.
“This is not just about the Istanbul mayorship; it’s about justice, conscience and democracy,” said Kilicdaroğlu. “Ekrem İmamoğlu is not only CHP’s candidate anymore. From now on he’s the candidate of 16 million Istanbulites.”
One small Islamist party said it would not put up a candidate in the re-run election so as not to take votes from the CHP.
A number of Turkish celebrities, including comedian Cem Yilmaz, shared Mr Imamoğlu’s election hashtag “Everything is going to be great” on Twitter. “This is a very sad situation…our country does not deserve this,” Mr Yilmaz wrote.
The Turkish lira plunged to a seven-month low after the board’s decision. International investors have been alarmed by the increasingly authoritarian trend in Turkish politics under Mr Erdoğan.
The president’s party lost control of both the Istanbul and Ankara mayorships in the March election as urban voters rebelled over the country’s weakened economy.
After a series of recounts, the CHP was found to have won the Istanbul election by 14,000 votes out of more than 8 million cast. The AKP refused to accept the result and appealed to the election board.