HOW DID THE NEW SYSTEM PERFORM?
POLITICIANS will be tasked with evaluating the election outcome after widespread complaints that a voting system used for the first time was too complex.
Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) head Narin Şefik admitted on Monday that polling station officials across the country had become confused over counting and communicating to Lefkoşa the new “mixed votes”, under which electors could vote for individuals across a range of political parties, instead of the previous system of either voting for a single party en bloc, or choosing it and marking preferences among that party’s candidates.
While certain candidates fared well as 11 per cent of electors opted for casting “mixed votes” — HP leader Kudret Özersay attracting the most, at 7,799, followed by CTP leader Tufan Erhürman on 6,160 and TDP Girne MP Zeki Çeler on 5,398 — Mrs Şefik said the new system had led to delays in issuing results because they “did not want to give wrong information” and had had to “repeatedly double check”.
Transferring one mixed vote to the main list of votes had taken 20 minutes, she said, and some polling stations had been “unable to give out results even after six or seven hours”.
She told reporters: “As far as I know almost all of the political parties did not agree with YSK’s interpretation of the mixed votes. They expected it to be different.
“Now they are certain to make some changes in this law . . . [and] we want some changes to be made as well.”
Some dubbed Sunday’s ballot paper, listing the names of 388 candidates, a “blanket” and said it had been confusing to many, particularly the elderly, and there were claims that its complexity had put people off mixed voting, choosing to revert to stamping a block party rather than “take 30 minutes” to read through the names and mark candidate choices.
This view may have been borne out by the record 11.7 per cent of ballot papers declared invalid because of errors.
Commentator Mete Hatay said: “In the past we had invalid ballot papers but this was limited to just 5 to 7 per cent of the votes. Now the percentage has gone up to 11, which is a considerable increase.
“This shows how complicated the new system is. Voters were muddled and it took electoral staff three days to announce the results.”
“There will be a need to revise the complex election law,” added political expert Ahmet Sözen.