​Istanbul elections- Take 2

TURKEY - In Brief 07 May 2019 by Atilla Yesilada

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High Election Council (HEC) annulled Istanbul mayoral vote by a 7-4 decision, opening the way for re-election on 23 June. Only mayor’s office will be on the ballot, with borough and Istanbul municipal assembly results now finally certified. Mayor-elect (CHP) Ekrem Imamoglu was “defrocked” at once, with Interior Ministry appointing governor of Istanbul Mr. Ali Yerlikaya as mayor pro-tem. This Market Brief expands upon our work in the previous one, titled “Istanbul Rerun Is Much More Likely Now”, attempting to answer what I think would be FAQs on the minds of the audience. I waited until noon Tuesday to draft this Brief, to understand the HEC ruling, which essentially says that some vote tallies were not properly signed and more importantly 13K ballot monitors were not qualified to hold their positions. The grounds for annulment are ridiculous even to non-jurists, because HEC approved each of the ballot monitors, while no representation was made whether invalid vote tallies would have closed the 13K difference between Imamoglu and Binali Yildirim (AKP). Furthermore, if illegally constituted ballot monitoring boards were the real reason, borough and assembly elections should have been renewed, as well. Therefore, I conclude this a political ruling reached at the urging of Erdogan and Bahceli, which erases the very thin veneer of democracy in Turkey.Please mark my words that dropping the pretense of democracy, no matter how implausible it appeared each day, will be marked as the beginning of the end of Erdogan era, with ramifications reaching from Turkey’s relations with West to domestic stability. As I write these lines CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu is still in a meeting ...