Thousands of Turkish security personnel registered as voters to critical constituencies, DEM Party says

Duvar English

Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party’s Deputy Co-Chair for Local Administrations Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki announced that the government made thousands of police and soldiers “mobile voters” and registered them at addresses that did not exist beforehand in critical electoral districts in the run up to the 2024 Local Elections.

Giving an example from eastern Iğdır province, Tiryaki reminded that their predecessor Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) won the municipality elections with a difference of 1,514 votes in the 2009 local elections. 

He pointed out that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was trying to influence the election results and said, "In a street at Pir Sultan Abdal Neighborhood, there is a new adress created and 1,450 voters were registered that single address. Only five of them voted in the 2023 general elections in Iğdır an the others were brought from outside.”

Referring to an address on Kazım Karabekir Street in Konaklı neighborhood of Iğdır, Tiryaki said, "There was no such address in the elections six months ago. A total of 743 male voters were registered at this single address. In the Address Inquiry System, the address registered as the Provincial Security Directorate, yet it is indeed a workplace.” 

Tiryaki also noted that 1,186 voters registered in the overseas voter registry in the 2023 general elections were transferred to the center of Iğdır so that they could vote in the 2024 local elections. He said, "We are talking about mobile voters. The government moves the security personnel abroad for a certain period and transfer them to the provinces it desires to win during another period."

Giving another example from the center of southeastern Siirt province, Tiryaki underscored that HDP won the 2019 local elections with 1,161 votes in this electoral district. 

He stated that DEM Party identified at least 6,000 suspicious voters merely in Siirt and added, “I am not talking about fictitious voters, but about thousands of people who were suspiciously transferred to the center.”

For instance while 10 voters had been registered to a single address in Cengiz Topal Neighborhood in the general elections, 2,099 people were currently registered in the said address with 20,890 percent increase. While only 10 of them were voters registered to Siirt center, the others were outsiders.

The government appointed trustees to the nearly all of the local administrations where HDP won in 2019 elections. The upcoming local elections will be held on March 31, 2024.