ANKARA
Turkey’s Constitutional Court has requested additional documents from the highest electoral authority over its decision in rejecting the main opposition mayoral candidate’s appeal on the Ankara mayoral poll results on March 30.
The Constitutional Court asked the Supreme Election Board (YSK) for its detailed ruling, in which it rejected the Republican People’s Party’s mayoral candidate Mansur Yavas’s appeal. Yavas had requested that all votes in the Ankara mayoral elections be recounted and the results of the local mayoral elections in Ankara be cancelled.
"I hope the Constitutional Court rejects it [the documents] without examining it," Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters in the Turkish parliament on Tuesday. Bozdag said such an act would infringe both the Constitution and its law of establishment.
Individual applications can be made to Turkey’s highest Constitutional Court, but only to appeal against judicial decisions, Bozdag said.
However, Bozdag said individual applications to the Constitutional Court against Supreme Election Board’s decisions are unconstitutional because its decisions, in accordance with the Turkish constitution, are final.
‘’The constitution says decisions by the YSK cannot be appealed to any authority,’’ Bozdag said.
The current mayor, Melih Gokcek, member of the AK Party, obtained 44.7 percent of the votes, closely followed by Mansur Yavas at 43.81 percent. Gokcek won his fifth election victory in the March 30 local ballot, giving him another five years in office.
On April 10, Yavas called on the YSK to resign, blaming it for alleged mistakes and irregularities made in counting votes in the March 30 local elections.
aa.com.tr/en
