https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/world/europe/turkey-istanbul-erdogan-vote.html
Erdogan’s Party Demands New Mayoral Election in Istanbul
Turkey’s governing AK Party officially demanded a new mayoral election in Istanbul, alleging widespread irregularities tainted the results of the March 31 vote that put an opposition candidate narrowly ahead. The lira slid.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s refusal to concede defeat in Turkey’s commercial hub and his party’s pressure for a revote have rattled investors in the Middle East’s biggest economy, who see it as an attack on the country’s democratic foundations. The lira was trading 0.2 percent weaker at 5.8141 per dollar at 4:51 p.m. Tuesday in Istanbul.
“We’ve submitted our petition for the cancellation of last month’s vote and demand for a new election,” AK Party’s Deputy Chairman Ali Ihsan Yavuz told reporters. “There was an organized irregularity, a complete vote fraud.”
Yavuz said that results were skewed by tally documents that didn’t carry official stamps, the participation of thousands of prison inmates and disabled people who weren’t authorized to vote, and the presence of 20,000 election officials who hadn’t been vetted. Nearly 17,000 votes cast for AKP were registered for other parties, he said. He didn’t produce any evidence, but walked into the election board building with three black roller bags that he said were stuffed with evidence of fraud.
Markets “won’t like” the push for a new vote, said Tim Ash, senior strategist at BlueBay Asset Management LLP in London.
“Even if the High Election Board rejects this request, the damage to Turkey’s reputation is already done,” Ash said.
The board had earlier denied the AK party’s request for a full recount in Istanbul, and has been conducting a new tally in some districts that hasn’t reversed the bruising loss for the ruling party’s candidate. The latest count shows Ekrem Imamoglu, the opposition candidate, leading former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, by about 14,000 votes in the city of 16 million people. NTV television said the partial recount may be complete by late Tuesday.
Turkey’s biggest cities turned against Erdogan for the first time since 1994 in a municipal election roiled by a raging recession and a recent run on the currency. The capital, Ankara, and cities along the Mediterranean coast slipped from the grasp of his nationalist alliance, which largely stood its ground across much of the country’s rural interior.