Green Left Party vows to defend votes for the party in Hakkari

The AKP has filed an appeal in Hakkari against the validity of the Turkey election in all constituencies of the Kurdish province, where a large majority of eligible voters voted for the Green Left Party and Kılıçdaroğlu on Sunday.

Erdoğan's AKP party has filed an appeal in Hakkari against the validity of the parliamentary and presidential elections in the constituencies of the Kurdish province and wants to have all ballots recounted. Due to an "accumulation and severity" of alleged electoral errors and irregularities, including votes cast en bloc, input errors in the transmission of the so-called quick report and its recording in the election results software, as well as an unusually large number of invalid votes, it cannot be ruled out that “without these incidents a different distribution of seats in the Turkish parliament would have resulted", says the AKP in justification. The Green Left Party, which won the election in Hakkari by a landslide according to the preliminary results, expressed little surprise in an initial reaction to the accusations made by the AKP, criticising them as a "more than transparent political manoeuvre".

"In the face of its obvious defeat in Hakkari, the AKP is pulling out all the stops to turn the tide after all," said Kadir Şahin on behalf of the provincial Green Left Party organisation in Hakkari on Tuesday, announcing the start of a "democracy vigil" against the planned theft of the people's will. Şahin rejected the electoral errors used to justify the AKP's request for a recount of the votes as unfounded and unrealistic. He said that although the elections took place beyond fair and free conditions, violations of the basic principles of democratic voting did not come from the Green Left Party or other opposition parties. "Despite all odds, the people of Hakkari managed to go to the polls and defend their political will," Şahin said. The AKP's response to this, he said, was a heavy-handed sabotage tactic that could clearly be located as a sign of weakness. He stated that the AKP candidate, Abdulmuttalip Özbek, had a conversation with the governor while the foreign votes were still being counted, which was suspicious.  

In the parliamentary election, the Green Left Party received 62.47 per cent of the vote in Hakkari, the AKP 20.59 per cent and the CHP 7.24 per cent. According to state figures, voter turnout was 83.93 per cent, and of 160,220 votes cast, 7,044 are said to be invalid. The AKP's objection relates to the constituencies of Hakkari, Gever (Yüksekova) and Şemzînan (Şemdinli), where the Green Left Party candidates Vezir Parlak, Öznur Bartın and Onur Düşünmez won the election by a clear margin, receiving a total of 95,684 votes. This means that all the deputy mandates for Hakkari go to the Green Left Party. In the presidential election, CHP candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu won the race in Hakkari, receiving 72.32 per cent of the vote. 

"In order to counteract the planned vote theft, we have held various talks with the authorities. A vigil for democracy has also been launched," Şahin said. The sit-in takes place in front of the provincial election committees, one of which is in the building where the governor also sits. The Association of Lawyers for Freedom (ÖHD), the Human Rights Association (IHD) and the initiative of Peace Mothers support the action. "We call on all those in authority to respect the political will of the people and to remain neutral towards all parties," Şahin said. Calling on civil rights organisations to take action against the AKP's political manoeuvres, he said that the Green Left Party was determined to exhaust all means to defend votes for the party.