During the June 7 general elections, there were serious allegations in the southeastern provinces, where the Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) won the majority of the votes, about electoral fraud and threats to election observers by the outlawed PKK terrorist organization. With the aim of preventing similar threats and pressure from the PKK, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has begun an initiative. Providing further tasks to the governors is now topping the AK Party's agenda, which has included election safety.
AK Party vice chairman and Gaziantep deputy, Abdülhamit Gül, recently made statements to the Sabah daily. Emphasizing the shadiness of the elections in the east and southeast, Gül said: "We are currently working on possible legal safety measures that can be taken. An alteration of the Electoral Law is anticipated. The political parties could come together to include a temporary item on the Constitution that would allow the alteration of election safety."
Gül added: "The HDP received 79 votes in a ballot box that had 75 voters. In the majority of the ballot boxes, the HDP received 100 percent of the vote. It is not possible to have 100 percent valid votes in one ballot box. There would at least be three to five invalid votes. Especially having 100 percent valid votes in eastern and southeastern Turkey where literacy rates are low shows that there are serious threats, and an illegal process has taken place. However, no one is able to object to this matter."
