AK party candidate highlights ‘fraud’ in Buyukcekmece

ANKARA

A Turkish ruling party mayoral candidate on Wednesday said he believes elections will be cancelled in Buyukcekmece district, on the suburbs of Istanbul, in order to remove all doubts on poll results.

“In order to get rid of all blemishes on the election results, I believe elections will be canceled,” Mevlut Uysal, Justice and Development (AK) Party’s candidate, told reporters.

“If polls in Buyukcekmece district are canceled, elections in Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality will be affected,” he added.

Hinting at “fraud” in the district, Uysal said: “In Buyukcekmece, nearly 12,000 voters were removed from the voter list of more than 172,000 people since June 24, 2019”.

“Among those voters, 3,092 of them are currently not registered anywhere in Turkey,” he added.

Uysal said the changes in voter records can only be done by an organized team. These numbers cannot be processed without using the data of the institutions.

March 31 local elections in Turkey

Millions of Turkish voters cast their votes nationwide in elections to choose Turkey’s mayors, city council members, mukhtars (neighborhood officials), and members of elder councils for the next five years.

According to unofficial results, the AK Party is leading in 15 metropolitan municipalities (larger cities), with 24 cities claimed by AK Party candidates.

* Writing by Busra Nur Bilgic