As many as 400,000 voters are at risk of being unable to cast their ballots in the Nov. 1 general election, as many voting stations in the country's eastern and southeastern provinces may be transferred due to a lack of security, which the opposition sees as a move to increase the ruling party's chances.
Residents of several villages and neighborhoods in the region will be required to vote elsewhere if the country's top election authority approves decisions made by local election boards.
As many as 150 areas in a region composed of 15 predominantly Kurdish provinces have been recently declared special security zones by governor's offices, in an effort to fight the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The neighborhoods and villages where no voting stations would be set up are places, the government argues, where residents' votes would be unfairly influenced by pressure from the PKK.
The move is seen by the opposition as the latest attempt of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to stop the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) from passing the 10 percent election threshold in November's snap election.
“It is not acceptable for ballot boxes to be transferred,” Levent Gök, the parliamentary group deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), said on Monday, arguing that the transfers and the declaration of security zones are unconstitutional.
“The CHP is against the transfer of ballot boxes. The [Supreme Election Board (YSK)] does not even have the authority to do so,” Gök told reporters in Parliament. The decisions made by local election boards must be approved by the YSK before being validated. The YSK was expected to take up the issue on Monday, but Turkish media quoted YSK head Sadi Güven telling reporters on Monday that the issue would not be on the YSK's agenda that day.
The HDP, which is closely linked with the PKK, received a wide majority of votes in the Southeast in the general election on June 7.
It is feared that voters may be unable to vote if asked to do so in another neighborhood due to security concerns and an inability to afford transportation, as many residents of the region live on very modest means.
Oktay Vural, the parliamentary group deputy chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), criticized the government's move to transfer the ballot boxes, saying, “When did you transfer the sovereignty [of the region] to the PKK?”
Both Gök and Vural called on the interim Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government to resign if it cannot manage to maintain public order in the region.
If the YSK approves the local election boards' decisions, residents of many villages and neighborhoods in provinces such as Diyarbakır, Muş, Şırnak, Bitlis, Batman, Mardin and Tunceli would be forced to cast their votes in another neighborhood or another village.
Almost 140 members of security forces have been killed in PKK attacks in the East and Southeast since the end of July, when a de facto cease-fire between security forces and the PKK ended.
In Cizre, 48,687 voters would be forced to vote in another neighborhood. In Batman, ballot boxes would not be established in nine neighborhoods of the city center; Residents, numbering more than 25,000, of the 19 Mayıs, Çay, Yeşiltepe, Hilal, Huzur, Seyitler, Petrolkent, Güneykent and Bayındırlık neighborhoods would be required to vote in another. In Silopi, 26,031 voters would be forced to vote outside their neighborhood if the decision of the local election board is approved
