Voting off to rocky start in Turkey
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Voting for Turkey’s presidential and general elections has begun in the country. Polling centres opened at 8 am and will close at 5 pm. Preliminary results will become available by the late evening today.
A record turnout is expected, as the country faces one of its most consequential elections. The last four elections (including the 2017 presidential referendum) hovered at around 85% participation; turnout reached its zenith in 2015, at 87%. Absentee voting recorded a 51% turnout – slightly higher than usual.
Voters will choose between three presidential candidates. A fourth contender, Mehrem Ince, had dropped out this week over a deepfake controversy. An updated poll showed a 50,5% lead for opposition favourite Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan trailed behind at 45,6%. Yet the race is too close to call. The latest polling aggregates give Kilicdaroglu a mere 0,02% lead. Both men have already cast their ballots – Erdogan in his native Istanbul; Kilicdaroglu in Ankara.
Besides Erdogan and Kilicdargolu, voters can also choose a third candidate, Sinan Ogan. The 55-year-old has little chance of winning – he currently polls at around 3%. Ogan represents the ATA Alliance, a far-right, but Kemalist, outgrowth of the MHP party, Erdogan’s junior coalition partner. Though from the government’s camp, he will likely attract votes that would otherwise go to Kilicdaroglu. Ogan had left the MHP in 2016 together with other dissenters, such as IYI party leader Meral Aksener, who joined the Kilicdaroglu-led opposition to Erdogan.
Voting in Turkey is already off to a rocky start. The Cumhuriyet newspaper reported of an alleged fraud in Giresum province, on the Black Sea coast. Over 100 boxes of blank ballots there had been sealed in such a way as to appear to be marked in favour of Erdogan. Reportedly, lawyers were notified.
Unconfirmed reports from Gaziantep also allege that at least 58 Green Left Party (YSP) voters were not allowed in their district. An HDP member reportedly found that thousands of unsuspecting voters in the district had been turned into Vatan Party (a Turkish left party) ballet box committee officials by authorities, thereby barring them from voting in the district.
Moreover, Twitter announced on Friday that it would block some content on its platform for Turkish users. The social media company did not elaborate on the justifications or content it would be blocking. Twitter CEO Elon Musk says it did so to avoid being “throttled in its entirety”. That is, to evade a complete ban, which the government of Erdogan has imposed previously. The latest such instance was after a deadly earthquake in February, likely over criticism of the government’s response (or lack thereof). Rescue workers complained that the ban hindered their life-saving activities.