Reuters ‘Pocket Security’ analysis: ‘Voters are determined to protect the ballot box’

The electoral process that will take place in Turkey on May 14 is closely followed by the world press.

The British news agency Reuters, in its detailed story on the elections, commented that the belief in the possibility of the opposition wing taking power for the first time after the earthquake disaster lived during the period in which the AKP government, which has ruled the country for more than 20 years, it struggled with high inflation.

“Hundreds of thousands of volunteers are preparing to take responsibility for the security of the ballot box against risks that could affect the election results,” the analysis said.

A young man named Yiğit, who lost his parents in the earthquake disaster, told Reuters he is determined not to leave the polls so that no one else will vote for his parents, whose names are still on the voter list, as their corpses could not be reached. Reuters noted that Yiğit, 26, who is studying in Ankara, is just one of thousands of voters who are concerned about the security of the ballot box during the electoral process.

HDP Batman deputy Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki said: “There are still people who appear to be voters even though they lost their lives… The only thing that can be done in this regard is that they will control political parties because they are in the ballot boxes. I Don’t think it will happen,” he said.

Reuters wrote that belief in the Nation Alliance’s electoral victory is growing.

THE PROBLEM OF INSECURITY OF BOXES IN Türkiye

Bekir Ağırdır, KONDA Research board member, on why there is concern about insecurity regarding ballot boxes in Turkey, drew attention to the fact that the number of people who lost their lives in the earthquake disaster was not Clearly at a press conference. held in recent days. Heavy, stating that it is not known how many people left the earthquake zone and where they went, said that even this issue alone creates insecurity at the polls.

Ağırdır noted that there is no clear information on how many of the refugees in Turkey, which is estimated to be around 6-8 million, are citizens.

Reuters reported that mistrust in the results of the polls, which is glaring in every election in Turkey, has become even more evident after this year’s earthquake disaster, with the formation of voter lists on missing persons. According to the 2019 report of the Electoral Integrity Project, Turkey, which falls into the category of elective autocratic regime, ranked 123 out of 165 countries in terms of electoral honesty.

SAFETY STEP FOR DEVA PARTY BOOTS

The non-governmental organization Oy ve Ötesi announced that it aims to control the minutes of all the polls with 100,000 volunteers for the elections.

Representatives of the opposition parties also took measures to avoid losing this election, which they thought they could win, due to voting errors, carrying out security work at the polls. In a statement to Reuters, DEVA party spokesman and head of electoral affairs İdris Şahin said: “The process of counting open ballots and envelopes in the 2017 and 2019 referendum, with the intervention of the Supreme Electoral Board, was clearly a state of anarchy. And it inevitably overshadowed the referendum results. Furthermore, in the 2019 local elections in Istanbul, the Supreme Election Board changed the results of the elections and they were officially assassinated.”

‘LOW SECURITY STANDARDS IN RECENT YEARS’

Professor Tanju Tosun, a political expert, also claimed that standards regarding election security and honesty in Turkey have remained low in recent years, noting that this triggered debates over legitimacy right after the election.

Tosun said: “Within the category of autocratic elective regime, Turkey ranks 123 out of 165 countries in terms of electoral integrity. Based on this finding, electoral security in our country, which has serious problems with electoral honesty, has potential risks regarding the legitimacy of the elections as well as legal problems.