Unmarked ballots in Turkish election raise suspicions

ANKARA, Turkey – One-quarter of the ballot box tallies in last week’s mayoral elections – enough votes to reverse the narrow victory by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s candidate many times over – arrived at counting centers in the Turkish capital without the official stamp of the election board.

But when the officials of the defeated Republican People’s Party, known as the CHP, went before district election boards to complain about this and other irregularities, they were rebuffed in hearings that lasted just minutes, the party’s lawyer said.

The provincial election board took about that long to reject the party’s appeal Friday. On Wednesday, Turkey’s Supreme Election Board unanimously tossed out the Republican People’s Party’s demand for a new election after about three hours of deliberation.

Erdogan, Turkey’s leader for 11 years, has portrayed mayoral races here, in Istanbul and throughout this country of 78 million as a plebiscite on his leadership, which has been challenged by a massive corruption scandal since mid-December. He and his party have taken their nationwide victory March 30 as a vote of confidence.

But the vote in Ankara and other cities raises a serious question: Was the party’s success the result of genuine affection or of manipulation, fraud and political pressures brought to bear on the day of the vote and in the 10 days since?

The Republican People’s Party charged that Wednesday’s decision was the result of “political influence” by Erdogan and his party. The supreme election council “could not have endured the earthquake that would have resulted from a ruling for a re-run,” said the party’s deputy chairman, Bulent Tezcan.

The unstamped ballot box tallies alone raise serious questions about the outcome. The summaries represented more than 713,000 votes – nearly a quarter of the 3.3 million votes cast, the CHP said. Incumbent Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek, a stalwart in Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, defeated CHP candidate Mansur Yavas by about 31,000 votes.