PM says 30,000 Syrians eligible to vote in Sunday’s elections as new citizens of Turkey

Thirty thousand Syrians who have been granted Turkish citizenship will vote in Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said yesterday.

“They have the right to vote, but I do not know how many of them will use that right,” Mr Yildirim told NTV.

He said that Syrians who had received Turkish citizenship “must obey the Turkish law”, the daily Hurriyet newspaper reported.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has granted citizenship to thousands of the about 3.5 million refugees who fled the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Many of the refugees in the country live in the south-east and Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city.

Critics of Turkey’s refugee policy say that the government lacks a strategy to deal with the Syrians’ long-term presence.

Mr Erdogan has railed against the rule of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, calling for a transition of power after seven years of civil war. Meanwhile, voting at Turkish embassies and consulates overseas for expatriates ended yesterday, with sealed bags containing votes arriving in Turkey. Voting at border gates and airports will continue until all polls close on Sunday afternoon.

The country’s official Anadolu news agency said 41 per cent of more than 3 million registered expatriate voters had cast their ballots so far.

Mr Erdogan on Sunday faces the biggest ballot box challenge of his 15-year grip on Turkey, seeking to overcome a revitalised opposition against the background of an increasingly troubled economy.

The vote takes place almost two years after the failed coup aimed at removing Mr Erdogan from power, which prompted Ankara to launch the biggest purge of the opposition in recent times under a state of emergency that remains in place.