Presidential candidates Kılıçdaroğlu and Oğan discuss election security

Duvar English

Nation Alliance’s presidential candidate and main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and far-right ATA Alliance’s candidate Sinan Oğan have discussed election security on April 12 in a meeting held at the CHP’s headquarters in the capital Ankara.

The meeting between the two leaders lasted about 25 minutes.

Speaking after the meeting, Oğan said “We want to hold an election in which Turkey's election security is ensured in a democratic environment and citizens do not have any question marks in their minds. (In the meeting) We said we will exchange information. We will keep the doors of dialogue open (with Kılıçdaroğlu).”

Oğan stated that “We found that there are quite a lot of Syrian, Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani people on the voter list. We have concerns about this.”

The ATA Alliance is known for its strict anti-refugee stance.

“Our other concern is that only 450,000 of the over 2 million voters who left the earthquake-zone are registered. But 1 million 626 thousand voters did not register. This is both a major problem for democracy and the reflection of the will of the voters in the ballot box, and it is an issue that will put the election security into trouble. We think that the fatalities in the earthquake are higher than the announced numbers,” Oğan said.

He also added that “We see that there are still gaps in the last published regulation on unsealed ballot papers. The Supreme Election Council (YSK) said 'If the ballot box officials forgot to stamp the paper with good faith, then the votes will be counted.' How will the YSK determine the goodwill of ballot box officials?”

During the 2017 referendum on the election day, the YSK ruled that unstamped votes would also be counted as valid, causing a political turmoil.

The opposition parties had applied to the YSK to mark voters’ fingers with indelible ink during the voting process. However, the election board denied the requests.

The parliamentary and presidential elections will be held together on May 14 in a historic year as 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Turkey.