Electoral bans, restrictions on campaigning, begin today for June 24 elections


Electoral laws barring certain campaign based activities for the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held on June 24 will be enforced Thursday until June 23.

Accordingly, broadcasts in favor of or against a political party or candidate, or in a manner that affects the opinion of the citizen, such as a mini-referendum, public opinion surveys, polls and estimates in any form, is prohibited.

Also, civil servants may not participate in trips by the prime minister, ministers, deputies and candidates in relation to campaigning during this time period.

Additionally, the prime minister, ministers and deputies, who make election propaganda or participate in election campaigns, cannot assign official services for their visits for campaigning purposes within this period. They are also barred from using official banquets and ceremonies as tools for their election campaigns.

Presidential candidates will have a chance to appeal to voters on Turkey's public broadcaster TRT, on June 17 with 10-minute campaign speeches.

The public broadcaster will feature speeches by the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) candidate President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Vatan Party's (VP) candidate Doğu Perinçek, the jailed candidate of the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş and the Felicity Party's (SP) candidate Temel Karamollaoğlu.

Another broadcast will be on held on June 23, the night before the elections, where Erdoğan, Perinçek, Demirtaş and Karamollaoğlu will get a chance to speak again on TRT.

The Republican People's Party's (CHP) candidate, Muharrem İnce, did not apply to the Supreme Election Council (YSK) to make a campaign speech. Also, the Good Party's (İP) candidate Meral Akşener reported that she will not speak on TRT.

Akşener has criticized the media, saying that she would sell the TRT public broadcaster if she wins.

On the other hand, the YSK allowed HDP's presidential candidate Demirtaş to record his speech for TRT in prison on Monday in Edirne province.