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May 4th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Turkey’s Supreme Election Board (YSK), in a surprise move, decided to file criminal complaints against Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, over the opposition party leader’s remarks about the role of the YSK in alleged irregularities during the constitutional referendum in April this year.
“We don’t find that right, we won’t accept this. … The rules cannot be changed while a match is being played. But the YSK has changed the rules right after the polls were closed.”
The YSK announced its decision to file criminal complaints against Kilicdaroglu after an unscheduled meeting on May 3. The YSK, often described as “election watchdog”, issued a statement saying:
“It has been decided that criminal complaints will be filed in the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office against the concerned individuals for pointing the YSK chairman and its members as targets and for statements with criminal content.”
The YSK’s decision came after Kilicdaroglu, on May 2 at a parliamentary group meeting in Ankara, criticized the YSK as well as some judges. The CHP leader allegedly said the 10 YSK members who voted against the CHP’s appeal requesting the repeal of the 16 April referendum were “gang members.”
He allegedly also noted that: “The 10 judges working at YSK did not abide by the laws. Those who do not abide by the legislation and give decisions which are not in line with the legislation are called gang in our law. … The 10 judges sitting there and making decisions are not judges, but instead they constitute the gang of YSK.”
Meanwhile, the YSK maintains that the decision to accept unstamped (unsealed) ballot papers was fully legal “unless it can be proved that they were brought from outside the voting room.”
That said, the CHP and Kilicdaroglu maintain that the YSK made the decision to also accept the unstamped (unsealed) ballot papers while vote counting already was in progress. Kilicdaroglu compared the situation with the YSK changing the rules of the game while the game was already in progress. Following disclosure about the YSK’s decision to accept the unsealed / unstamped ballots, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, noting that the electoral board had violated two fundamental principles of the Election Law, he said:
“We don’t find that right, we won’t accept this. … The rules cannot be changed while a match is being played. But the YSK has changed the rules right after the polls were closed.”
The leftist People’s Democratic Party (HDP) which is particularly strong represented in predominantly Kurdish regions and the Patriotic Party (VP) also complained about irregularities. However, on April 19 the YSK stated that it had inspected appeals from the CHP, HDP and VP and rejected them all, with only one affirmative vote from its 11 members. Filing criminal charges over an opposition party leader’s remarks during a CHP parliamentary group meeting is according to many independent observers predictive of Turkey’s new-found understanding of parliamentary immunity, freedom of expression and opinion, and democracy – AKP-style.
CH/L – nsnbc 04.05.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/05/04/turkeys-election-board-to-file-criminal-charges-against-chp-leader-over-comments-on-referendum/
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