“Those who attempt to usurp national will have been caught in the act. Mayoral elections for İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) will be re-run to remove the slur cast on our democracy with the plots of those who have their eyes on the will of voters.” said Presidency’s Director of Communications Prof. Fahrettin Altun.
On his Twitter account, Altun commented on mayoral elections for IMM that the Supreme Election Council (YSK) decided to annul and re-run:
Altun tweeted "Those who attempt to usurp national will have been caught in the act,” and noted the following:
"Although they raise their voices because of the guilt they feel, the truth is that: Mayoral elections for IMM will be re-run to remove the slur cast on our democracy with the plots of those who have their eyes on the will of voters .”
Altun also shared a video prepared on the decision about annulment.
The footage reminds that İstanbul residents will vote again on June 23 and involves the following information:
"Voters cast 4 different votes on March 31. They were for electing metropolitan municipality mayor, district mayor, city council members and mukhtar. So why did YSK only annul mayoral elections for metropolitan municipality?
1. YSK only evaluates objections as required by election law. Besides, AK Party only objected to mayoral elections for IMM.
2. YSK decides whether the number of votes, subject to objection, affects the election results or not. Irregularities to the extent that require the annulment of elections occurred only in mayoral elections for Metropolitan Municipality. Those who had their eyes on the votes, minutes and the will of voters entered missing or invalid data into YSK system and their only target was: IMM.”
The footage pointed that the objections made by AK Party had four main points and involved the following:
"Irregularities on tally sheets where the votes from ballot boxes were written with checks. Voting by ineligible voters. Discrepancy between the number of voters and the number of ballots. Unlawful assignment of 19 thousand 742 people as ballot committee members and chairs although they are not civil servants despite it is clearly stipulated by election law that they should be.
As a result of the evaluations conducted upon objections, YSK found 123 ballot boxes where ballot committee members were unlawfully assigned and other irregularities occurred. It was concluded that the vote counts of 22 of these ballot boxes were entered into YSK system as ‘blank’ since the tally sheets were lost, that 101 tally sheets were unsigned and unsealed, and that some ballot committee chairs were not civil servants, which was in violation of the Law. The total number of votes cast in these 123 ballot boxes, where several irregularities occurred, is around 42 thousand. The difference between AK Party’s candidate Binali Yıldırım and CHP’s candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu is only 13 thousand 729 after all the objections and corrections. YSK found that the number of votes from ballot boxes, where irregularities occurred, was 3 times higher than the difference between the candidates, and therefore annulled mayoral elections for Metropolitan Municipality."
The video reminds that AK Party’s objections for the cancellation of Büyükçemece elections and MHP’s objections for the cancellation of Maltepe elections were rejected by YSK. It also includes the following information:
"Because YSK concluded that the number of votes, subject to objections, in those districts, would not change the election results. If all the votes were recounted in İstanbul, it would be seen how significant the extent of irregularity was. Only an example: there were 160 votes in favour of AK Party candidate Binali Yıldırım at the ballot box no. 2122, however; it was entered in YSK’s system as ‘zero’. It was found that 60 votes in favour of Yıldırım were written in favour of CHP’s candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu, and 100 votes were written in favour of Patriotic Party’s candidate Mustafa İlken Yücel. Irregularities that occurred in hundreds of ballot boxes were corrected upon objections. However, it is not known how many ballot boxes faced this organized act of vote stealing since all the votes in Istanbul were not recounted."