One hundred people listen to presentations crammed into a room in Istanbul, defying the oppressive summer heat and attentively taking notes.
Their aim — to ensure Sunday’s elections in Turkey are not marred by election fraud.
Opposition parties, associations and members of the public have united in an unprecedented way to organize monitoring of the polling stations to check for any irregularities.
Photo: Reuters
With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeking a new mandate as well as a majority for his ruling party, the margins could be tight and activists want to ensure there is not the slightest risk of foul play swinging the results.
Turkey generally has an excellent record in election transparency and producing results that are accepted by all sides, but the implementation of a controversial new election law and accusations by the opposition of irregularities in a referendum on a new constitution in April last year has intensified interest in election monitoring.
“We are worried. The referendum had a major impact on us,” said Selcan, 35, who was taking part in a training workshop in Istanbul organized by Turkish election transparency non-governmental organization Oy ve Otesi (Vote and Beyond).
Selcan and thousands of others like her will be in position on Sunday in polling stations in Istanbul and across the nation, watching keenly for any contraventions.
“The more monitoring there is, the less problems there are going to be,” said Gozde Elif Soyturk, the head of Oy ve Otesi, which is looking to train 50,000 to 60,000 monitors before the vote.
Associations had to rush to organize themselves and get to grips with the new election rules after Erdogan called the snap polls, bringing them forward from the scheduled date of November next year.
A measure that has been of particular controversy has been accepting ballot papers without the official stamp of the election authorities as valid votes.
The Turkish Supreme Election Commission (YSK) first accepted such ballot papers in the referendum, prompting the opposition to cry foul, saying one of the main barriers to ballot-stuffing had been removed.
“This will truly be the main thing to watch,” said Yasemin Ulusan, a lawyer with the Istanbul bar who has been organizing seminars for colleagues who want to observe the elections.
For Sunday’s polls, about 30 bar associations have united to send lawyers to the polling stations.
“From Sunday 6:30 am we will put in place a crisis center” to receive any complaints, Ulusan said.
In a sign of their concern, the opposition parties have joined together to create a “Platform for a Fair Election” which is to carry out a parallel count with the help of a mobile app that can be downloaded on observers’ smartphones.
The aim, according to Onursal Adiguzel, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), is to “protect the ballot of the voter, whatever party they voted for.”
Erdogan’s main rival in the presidential race, Muharrem Ince of the CHP, has declared he plans to “camp” outside the Ankara headquarters of the YSK after voting on Sunday.
Another, more traditional safeguard, comes from international observers, with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe deploying a mission of 12 staff in Ankara and 22 long-term observers across the nation to monitor the conduct of the polls.
YSK Chairman Sadi Guven, who rejected that there had been any irregularities in last year’s referendum, on Tuesday said that the results would be communicated “in all transparency” to the parties.
The mobilization to monitor elections might be due to the fact that the new president would have more powers than any other recent Turkish head of state under the changes introduced under the referendum.
One of the biggest concerns of the observers is the situation in the Kurdish-majority southeast of the nation, where in certain areas a strong anti-Erdogan vote is awaited.
The Kurdish vote is likely to be crucial in the parliamentary polls, where the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) could thwart the ruling party of Erdogan keeping its overall majority by polling the more than 10 percent threshold needed to win seats.
“In the southeast, the number of observers is weak if you compare it with the big cities like Istanbul,” Soyturk said.
The authorities have adopted “security” measures in the southeast that would see several polling stations moved and the HDP has stepped up its calls to mobilize observers.
“Protect your vote from the evil eye,” it wrote on Twitter above a picture of Erdogan.
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