An article published in the Discussion Column in the Swedish newspaper Expressen, commenting on the importance of the general elections to be held on 7 June, said the AKP is engaging in electoral irregularities.
An article published in the Discussion Column in the Swedish newspaper Expressen, which comments on the importance of the general elections to be held in Turkey and North Kurdistan on 7 June, said the AKP is engaging in electoral irregularities at the Turkish consulate in Sweden.
The AKP government that is resorting to lies and fraud in order to prevent the HDP exceeding the electoral threshold of 10%, is also using underhand methods to prevent the Kurdish, Assyrian people and democratic circles living in Europe voting for the HDP.
While in many countries in Europe the voting period in the consulates is in several centres and over several days, in Sweden the voting is limited to the consulate in Stockholm only and to one day on 31 May. In a large country like Sweden, many voters have to ask for several days of leave to reach Stockholm, wait in long queues to vote and then return home, in addition to paying all the costs themselves.
300 Kurdish people living in Europe filed a complaint at the Turkish embassy in Sweden, saying that this situation hinders their right to vote, but the Turkish embassy rejected the application. The Kurdish people then held a meeting with representatives from the political parties, the HDP, AKP, MHP and the CHP as well as with NGOs, and applied to the Turkish embassy once again demanding an increase in the number of voting centres in Sweden and an extension of the voting period.
However, the Turkish state and the AKP government prefers to remain silent in the face of these applications and complaints. The Left Party Uppsala branch Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Yekbun Alp, published an article yesterday in Expressen interpreting the attitude of the AKP government as election fraud.
Alp stressed in his article that the AKP government is pursuing a planned strategy to keep the votes low and added that the voting period in Norway where 8 thousand voters live is 10 days, 24 days in Denmark where 31 thousand voters live, while it is only one day -31 May- in Sweden where 35 thousand voters live. Alp also said setting up ballot boxes in Sweden only in Stockholm also violates the right to vote as well as limiting the period to one day.
Alp demanded in his article that the Swedish Minister of Culture and Democracy, Alice Bah Kunke, take action against this situation which takes away the legal right of voters living in Sweden.
