Turkish opponent Kiliçdaroglu challenges the results of more than 7,000 ballot boxes for irregularities

The Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main party in the opposition in Türkiyeannounced this Wednesday that he presented formal complaints for alleged irregularities in thousands of ballot boxes in the historic elections last Sunday, in which the current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan got a better result than what was expected.

Muharrem Erkek, vice president of the secular CHP, assured that the irregularities in each ballot box were from a single miscounted vote to hundreds of such votes, which could change the course of the presidential race.

Erkek specified that the CHP had submitted formal objections to 7,049 ballot boxes in all the country: 2,269 ballot boxes for the presidential election and 4,825 for the parliamentary vote that also took place on Sunday.

The governor Justice and Development Party (AKP) Erdogan’s Islamist roots and his nationalist allies surprised pollsters by getting a solid majority in parliament.

In the presidential vote, Erdogan heads to a second round on May 28 against the opposition Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the CHP, after falling just one point below the 50% threshold needed to win an outright majority in the first round.

[Erdogan se jugará la presidencia en la segunda vuelta: las claves para que siga dirigiendo Turquía]

Pre-vote polls narrowly gave Kiliçdaroglu the winner, who nonetheless received 45% in what was considered the biggest electoral challenge to government of more than 20 years of Erdogan. The third most voted candidate, Sinan Ogan, got 5%.

201,807 ballot boxes

“We are following every voteeven if it didn’t serve to change the overall results,” Erkek told reporters in Ankara. A total of 201,807 ballot boxes for elections in Türkiye and abroad, Erkek said.

The deadline to challenge the results of the presidential election expired on Monday, while the one for the parliamentary vote expired on Tuesday, but Erkek claimed that the CHP had presented all your challenges within these deadlines.

The opposition alliance that includes the CHP has made a appeal to young votersin particular, so that support Kiliçdaroglu in the second round, explaining that the first round showed that Erdogan had lost the vote of confidence he was seeking.

For his part, Erdogan, who now faces the second round in the lead, says that only he can guarantee stability in Turkey, a NATO member state and which has close relations with Russia. The country faces a cost of living crisis, skyrocketing inflation and the impact of the devastating earthquakes in February.

Fear of fraud

Right after the elections, both the Turkish president and the opposition promised their supporters that they would monitor the counting of the votes for parliamentary and presidential elections.

“Voting has concluded, thank God, across the country in a manner consistent with our democracy. Now, as always, is the time to firmly protect the ballot box. Continue to protect the will of our nation until the results are final,” Erdogan wrote on Twitter.

For his part, Canan Kaftancioglu, the president in Istanbul of the social democratic party CHP, assured that her formation will closely monitor the counting of the votes. “Don’t worry about us. We will follow the whole process. And we will inform you from time to time, “he promised his followers.

The CHP had some 300,000 militants and supporters to follow the scrutiny in all the polling stations in the country and ensure the cleanliness of the process.