Turkey opposition wants referendum result annulled
Turkey's opposition Republican People's Party called for the results of a referendum agreeing new powers for Recep Tayyip Erdogan to be annulled
Ankara: The deputy leader of Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) on Monday called for the results of a referendum agreeing new powers for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to be annulled.
“There is only one decision to ease the situation in the context of the law—the Supreme Election Board (YSK) should annul the election," the Dogan news agency quoted Bulent Tezcan as saying after the CHP alleged widespread violations in Sunday’s poll.
The opposition was particularly incensed by a decision by the YSK to allow voting papers without official stamps to be counted, which they said opened the way for fraud. “This poll, which followed a principle of ‘open vote but secret count’ will find a place in the dark pages of our history," Tezcan told reporters at CHP headquarters in Ankara.
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Both the CHP and the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) has vowed to contest substantial chunks of the vote with the YSK. They can do this within the period until the final official results are published by the YSK in the next 10 days.
The referendum has no “democratic legitimacy", HDP spokesman and MP Osman Baydemir told reporters in Ankara. The opposition has also complained that local news media published the results before the YSK, whose website has been inaccessible all day Monday.
“’No’ votes were cast at the ballot box but ‘Yes’ came out on TV and agencies," added Baydemir. He said the HDP was challenging the results in “hundreds" of ballot boxes. “We have made our challenges to (the YSK). We continue to make new challenges," he said.
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