Istanbul mayoral recount narrowing gap: AK Party

By Nilay Kar Onum

ISTANBUL (AA) – A recount of invalid votes in Istanbul’s March 31 mayoral race has netted the ruling party 5,069 votes, narrowing its gap with the main opposition to some 14,000 votes, said a top ruling party official on Monday.

The vote gap between Justice and Development (AK) Party Istanbul mayoral candidate Binali Yildirim and Ekrem Imamoglu, the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate, has been cut in half, AK Party Deputy Chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz told reporters in Istanbul.

“The gap, which was 29,000 [votes] on April 1, decreased to 24,000 on April 2, and 21,000 votes on April 3, and continued in this way,” Yavuz said.

“If the gap today is 14,000, this means there was corruption, abuse, and irregularity at the polls,” he added.

“What we want is to dispel doubts [about the election results],” he said, adding that those responsible for irregularities should be fined.

The AK Party on Sunday asked the Supreme Election Board (YSK) to probe “organized crime” in the Istanbul mayoral polls late last month.

The AK Party has “detected organized crime and some organized activities," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters before leaving on a trip to Moscow.

Erdogan, who is also AK Party chairman, said there was not just one irregularity, but many irregularities in the local poll results.

Millions of Turkish voters cast their votes nationwide on March 31 in local elections to choose Turkey’s mayors, city council members, mukhtars (neighborhood officials), and members of elder councils for the next five years.

According to unofficial results, before any recounts, the CHP’s Imamoglu leads Istanbul with 48.79% of the votes, ahead of the AK Party’s Yildirim with 48.51%.

The AK Party has said a recount might change the results and has contested the results.