Summary: After a decision to rerun just the mayoral vote, Turkey's main opposing party has called to declare last year's national elections and the entire Istanbul city election in March illegitimate. On Wednesday, the Republican People's Party said that if the mayoral vote is rerun, votes for Istanbul officials and councils should be cancelled after President Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AK) won the majority vote. Following appeals by the AK Party, citing irregularities in the appointment of polling station officials, the High Election Board on Monday ordered a rerun of the Istanbul mayoral election, which the CHP's Ekrem Imamoglu won by a slight majority. On March 31st, citizens voted for district administrators, mayors, municipal councils, and local officials. The board ruled to cancel the one the AK Party lost, the Istanbul mayoral result, arguing that the ruling should apply to all four elections because the votes cast in the same envelopes and counted by the same officials. CHP Deputy Chairman Muharrem Erkek told reporters, "If you're revoking Ekrem Imamoglu's mandate ... then you must also annul President Erdogan's mandate because the same laws, same regulations, same applications, same polling stations and conditions were present in both elections," and also stated, "Why are you not cancelling the results that came out of the same envelopes,". 
Former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday that the decision to annul the results "caused damage to one of our fundamental values", tweeting "The biggest loss for political movements is not losing elections but the loss of moral superiority and social conscience,". Two of Erodogan's former party members have also expressed their concerns that rerunning the election will hurt the state's image. Abdullah Gul, former president and cofounder of the AK Party, compared the decision to a 2007 ruling that prevented him from becoming president without a two-thirds majority in parliament.
Germany's foreign minister called the decision "incomprehensible", and the European Union wants an explanation. Istanbul's reelection is scheduled on June 23. Analyst Ege Seckin told Al Jazeera, "This is something we had not seen in Turkey until now. The decision casts a shadow on the integrity of the ballot box in the country, which was something relatively safe, as some would claim, from the authoritarian tendencies of the government."
"It is definitely a bad sign for what may come. And it potentially creates a discouragement for the integrity of future elections."
Reaction:
Election integrity is something that is vital to a successful democracy. Refusing to accept results or trying to manipulate them is definitely a step towards dictatorship. After pretty much every election, no matter who wins, the losing side often cries "voter fraud" or "foreign interference", which we saw after the 2016 election and still see today. Turkey's CHP demanding a mayoral election rerun when the opposing party won the first time can be taken as disrespecting their democracy and heading down the slippery slope of dictatorship.
Connection:
Like I mentioned above, voting integrity is a topic often brought up here. In regards to connecting this to what we have learned in class, this reminds me of dictatorships and how they came to be. A sign of a dictator is controlling elections. When Stalin came into power, he turned the Soviet Union into a one party state. Often, dictators made sure that they were the only candidate, or took out all of their opponents.
Questions:
1. How dangerous is it to democracy to demand election reruns?
2. Should other countries interfere?
If there were actually irregularities in the voting process during the first vote, then I feel that it should be fine to redo the vote. If the majority of the democracy is demanding election reruns then I feel that that should be granted to the public since that is an indicator that something about the current/future government is not favored by the general public.
ReplyDeleteIn the future, countries might need to interfere if there continues to be unrest in escalating levels. Similarly to our South Africa unit, the UN could possibly watch over the elections to make sure it is conducting itself fairly and without irregularities.
Election reruns are slightly irritating for all those people who have to go through the voting process once again. However, if it is necessary, it should be fine. I also think, though, that if something happened that interrupted the election, all the votes on the ballot should not count. The voting process should have a clean slate and start over. Like Penny said, if the majority of the people want reruns on the entire ballot, I think they should deserve that right since they clearly don't like the government that was chosen. Other countries often only interfere if they think that the problem will affect them. In general, countries should help each other out but it doesn't always turn out that way.
ReplyDeleteDepending on the reason for the election rerun, it may be either damaging or a proponent of democracy. As the author of this blog post was saying, it is very easy for those who lose an election to cry fraud or error simply because they do not like the results of that election. A truly democratic country should absolutely not give in to false accusations from parties (not necessarily political, just in the general sense) who may have an ulterior motive in campaigning for reruns-- this would indicate corruption, and would not be conducive to a safe, democratic society. However, in a case where the election was not originally fair and democratic, a rerun would actually be in the best interest of the society. I think context and reason are the deciding factors of whether redoing a vote is detrimental or not. Given this, I don't think other countries should interfere with every single election that needs a second vote. Interference can be condescending towards countries that are working in earnest towards democracy. On the other hand, if an election is needing to be scrapped and repeated, it says something about the current state of that country. In this particular case, it appears that the issue is of the latter sort. Even so, Turkey should be granted the space and ability to sort out this moral issue (or even corruption) by itself. External interference should be a last resort.
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