The Turkish opposition denounced several irregularities this Sunday during the second and decisive round of the presidential elections, including physical attacks against electoral observers in southeastern Turkey
The social democratic party CHP, the party of the opposition candidate Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, spoke this Sunday, May 28, of numerous cases of votes in the name of people who were not present on the ballot papers, the registration of deceased people as voters and the delivery of ballot papers pre-sealed.
CHP parliamentary group deputy chairman Ozgür Ozel stated that a former Istanbul MP and several party poll watchers were beaten in Sanliurfa for denouncing the irregularities, according to the agency efe.
According to Özel said on Twitter, the incident took place in the village of Karaali, in Sanliurfa, where there were an insufficient number of gendarmes deployed.
One of the observers attacked told Halk TV that they tried to lynch her in the town, where “in many places people who oppose irregularities are threatened and beaten.”
Ahmet Davutoglu, former prime minister of the ruling AKP party and now an opposition party, also protested the beatings.
In a message on social networks, he assured that he is receiving information on votes of people who are not included in the records.
In today’s elections the current president, the slamist Recdep Tayyip Erdogan, and the social democrat opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu face each other.
Erdogan starts as the great favorite, since in the first round, two weeks ago, he obtained 49.5% of the votes, almost five points more than his rival.
Voting centers close
Voting centers in Turkey have closed at 5:00 p.m. (local time) beginning the counting of votes for the second round of the presidential elections. A total of 191,885 polling stations were set up for voting.
More than 64.1 million voters, including those living abroad, They were called to the polls to determine whether Erdogan, candidate of the Popular Alliance and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), will continue to lead the country in the next five years, after the last two decades in power.
To guarantee the security of the electoral process, the Ministry of the Interior deployed more than 596,000 security agents, including more than 324,000 police officers, throughout the national territory. Likewise, the center for emergency and security situations was created to monitor the process in all 81 provinces, while teams against cybercrimes track possible spread of disinformation, provocative posts and other types of malicious content, details the Hurriyet daily.
After casting his vote in a school in Istanbul, the current president highlighted in statements to the press that this is the first time that Turkey has held a second round to elect the future head of state.
“Since our people will vote between two candidates, the election will end very quickly. It is the first time that we have witnessed a vote of this type in the presidential elections, and there is no country in the history of the world in which such a vote has been held with a participation of up to 90%“, he declared, quoted by the channel TRT Have.
Meanwhile, Kilicdaroglu, candidate for the Alliance of the Nation and leader of the historic Republican People’s Party (CHP), exercised his right to vote in a school in Ankara. After depositing the ballot, the opposition candidate reiterated his position that With this electoral appointment he seeks to bring Turkey “true freedom”, reported RT.
*Read also: Elections in Turkey: What does the possible defeat of Erdogan mean for Venezuela?
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