Election body rejects CHP’s call for redo in quake-hit Hatay
TÜRKİYE’S Supreme Election Council (YSK) on Monday rejected a demand by the main opposition to recount votes and redo elections in southern Hatay province following the March 31 municipal elections.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) had accused the province of accepting votes from dead people. More than a week after the local elections in Türkiye, the official results have still not been finalized due to a large number of objections.
In the province of Hatay, which was previously governed by the CHP, results suggested the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had won – albeit only narrowly.
Speaking to locals in Hatay via a call, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday said: “You were determined and decided, and as a result, our brother Mehmet (Öntürk) won the election in Hatay with a decisive decision.”
He said the AK Party would step up its efforts and services for Hatay in the upcoming period.
“Above all, we will strive to overcome Hatay’s problems due to the unfortunate earthquake as soon as possible. After bayram, I hope that I and my delegation will visit Hatay,” the president added.
Hatay was one of the provinces worst affected by the earthquake in February 2023. Both the province’s CHP government and the central government were heavily criticized following the disaster.
On the other side, CHP Deputy Chairperson Gül Çiftci Binici also spoke on the issue during a news conference in the capital Ankara, saying the party had formed a special group for Hatay consisting of urban planners, lawyers and auditors. The group would start its work after the holidays.
Binici criticized the YSK decision as “unlawful.”
Öntürk took the town hall by winning 346,060 votes against Savaş’s 342,699 votes in the city.
According to unofficial results from the Supreme Election Council (YSK), the CHP won an election for the first time in four decades, taking 35 mayoral seats, including 14 metropolitan municipalities like Istanbul and Ankara, while AK Party won 24 cities and Parliament’s third-largest Green Left Party (YSP), informally known as the Peoples’ Democratic Party (DEM Party), took 10.
With nearly all ballot boxes opened across the country, the CHP leads with 37.76% of votes, followed by the AK Party with 35.48%. Candidates from a total of 34 political parties competed in the elections, with over 206,000 polling stations set up across the country.
Turnout was particularly low for the local vote, down by almost 5 million people to 78.1% from 84.7% in 2019 and 86.9% in 2023 elections, meaning 22 out of every 100 voters didn’t go to polls.
Preliminary research so far has shown “economic conditions, fatigue from backto-back elections and dissatisfaction with mayoral candidates” were the main causes of voter abstention.