Turkey’s top election authority has voted against annulling the referendum to further empower President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Main opposition parties had challenged the results following complaints of vote-rigging. Turkey’s high electoral board (YSK) rejected appeals from the country’s main opposition parties to annul the referendum results, the board said in a statement on Wednesday. The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the pro-Kurdish HDP had called on the electoral board to annul Sunday’s referendum because unstamped ballot papers were included in the count. They argued that this contravened Turkish electoral law. The board overwhelmingly voted to reject the parties’ appeals.
“HDP, CHP and Vatan Party appeals regarding the April 16 referendum were discussed separately and as a result of evaluations, the appeals were rejected with 10 votes against and 1 vote in favor,” the electoral board said. The board also published past rulings on the validity of unstamped ballots.
Mehmet Hadimi Yakupoglu, the CHP’s representative at the board, said that they were prepared to take the decision to the constitutional court and even to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
Full Article: Turkey election board rejects referendum annulment appeals | News | DW.COM | 19.04.2017.