Turkish opposition threatens to boycott parliament
TURKEY’S main opposition party has warned that it could walk out of parliament in protest against alleged fraud in Sunday’s referendum, raising the stakes in its stand-off with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the disputed results.
The secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) issued its warning as dozens of opposition activists were arrested for protesting against the result, in what appeared to be a fresh political crackdown.
Mr Erdogan said he intended to press ahead with translating the narrow Yes vote into constitutional reforms that will give him sweeping new powers, and brushed off criticisms that the changes would take Turkey towards dictatorship.
Three days after Mr Erdogan’s Yes camp claimed a 51 per cent victory in the referendum, the furore over alleged voter fraud showed no signs of dying down.
Protests have taken place in liberal urban neighbourhoods every night and opposition parties are refusing to accept the result
The CHP said the vote should be run again and that it could consider boycotting parliament if its concerns were not addressed. It would be a major escalation in the stand-off and undermine Mr Erdogan’s hopes of moving swiftly to the business of reshaping the constitution.
“We don’t recognise the referendum result,” CHP spokesman Selin Sayek Boke told the Hurriyet newspaper. “There should be no doubt that we will exercise all our democratic rights against it.”
Turkey’s election board voted 10-1 against the CHP’s application for the results to be annulled. The party said it would consult legal experts to plan its next move.
The high-level political machinations came as 38 opposition activists were reportedly arrested in dawn raids by police.
Most were from Left-wing parties or organisations that had protested against the results.
Turkish police enjoy broad powers to detain people under a state of emergency law in place since a failed coup attempt against Mr Erdogan last summer.
Opposition parties said that 1.5 million unstamped ballots were illegally counted – enough to swing an election that was decided by about 1.38 million votes, according to the state news agency.