Turkey’s AKP veterans voice discontent after decision to rerun Istanbul election
Former president of Turkey Abdullah Gul and former minister at Erdogan Cabinet Ahmet Davutoglu criticized the decision on Monday to cancel the opposition’s victory in the March 31 local election and run the vote again, Ahval news reported.
The Supreme Election Council (YSK)’s decision came after the AKP appealed against the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate’s slim victory on March 31, alleging “serious irregularities” in the vote.
Opposition figures have decried the pressure placed on the council, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged on Saturday to rerun the election.
Ahmet Davutoglu, a former AKP prime minister who was forced out in 2016 after an apparent power struggle with party officials close to the president, appears to share the opposition’s concerns about the validity of the YSK’s decision.
In a series of tweets published on Tuesday evening, Davutoglu said events after the Istanbul election and the decision to annul it had harmed the “basic values” of Turkey’s democracy – that voters had the final word at the ballot box.
“The biggest loss for a political movement is not an election, but the loss of moral superiority and social conscience”, said the former prime minister.
Former AKP president Abdullah Gul, also denounced the YSK’s decision via Twitter on Tuesday.
“What I felt in 2007 when the Constitutional Court made its unfair ruling number 367, that is what I felt yesterday when another high court, the Supreme Election Council, made its decision”, Gul said in his tweet on Tuesday.