The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Istanbul provincial organization applied Friday to the Istanbul provincial election board for a total recount of all votes cast in the province in the local elections.
Meanwhile, reports emerged on Friday that the AK Party Büyükçekmece district organization applied to the Istanbul provincial election board for the cancellation of the elections in Istanbul over the irregular registration of voters in the district.
However, AK Party Deputy Chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz later said that the party only applied for the annulment of local elections in Istanbul’s Büyükçekmece district, not in the whole province, but the provincial election board rejected the bid.
According to the AK Party Büyükçekmece district organization’s petition released by the Demirören News Agency (DHA), the party alleged that 21,000 fake voters had been registered in the district during the process to update voters lists in the run-up to the elections.
The petition noted that a district registry office personnel and another person, a namesake and relative of the district’s longtime mayor Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Hasan Akgün, had been arrested for irregularly registering voters by fabricating documents on behalf of Akgün. A judicial investigation launched by the Büyükçekmece Public Prosecutor’s Office is ongoing, in addition to an administrative inquiry by the district governorate, it added.
Yavuz said what happened in Büyükçekmece is inexplicable. “I know that the district registry office director has been arrested just because of this. It looks very meaningful to me. This number cannot be underestimated, a number over 20,000 is being spoken of,” Yavuz said.
