High electoral committee

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Authority logo in the 2014 local elections

The High Election Committee ( Yüksek Seçim Kurulu in Turkish , YSK for short) is the highest electoral authority in Turkey .

history

With Law No. 5545 of February 16, 1950, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey set up the High Electoral Committee with its seat in Ankara to hold the first truly democratic and free parliamentary election since the founding of the Republic on May 14, 1950.

After the military coup in 1960 , this law was repealed on April 29, 1961 and incorporated into the Basic Law on Elections and Voters' Registers (Law No. 298). The High Electoral Committee was also incorporated into the Constitution. In the period that followed, the laws were repeatedly adapted and the modes for the selection and appointment of members changed. This was last the case in 2017.

composition

The High Election Committee consists of a President ( Başkan ), six members and four alternate members. These are composed of six judges from the Court of Cassation and five members of the Council of State . The four alternate members are determined by lot.

Since January 24, 2013 Sadi Güven has been President of the High Electoral Committee. His deputy is Erhan Çiftçi . The current members are Zeki Yiğit, Refik Eğri, Nakiddin Buğday, Muharrem Akkaya, Cengiz Topaktaş, Ilhan Hanağasi, Yunus Aykin, Kürşat Hamurcu and Faruk Kaymak.

Requests and decisions

2017: constitutional referendum

During the constitutional referendum in 2017 , the opposition and election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe criticized the committee because on the day of the referendum, votes and voting envelopes were re-stamped (and therefore not valid under Article 101, Paragraph 1, No. 3 of Law No. 298) had been declared. The secular Republican People's Party (CHP) spoke of 2.5 million yes-votes, which could have brought about the end result (around 5%) in favor of the changes. The CHP and the HDP applied to the electoral committee to annul the referendum; the electoral committee rejected the motions. The CHP then announced that it would turn to the State Council. The highest administrative court declared that it was not responsible.

2019: Cancellation of the mayoral election in Istanbul

Ekrem İmamoğlu of the Republican People's Party ( CHP ) won the election as Lord Mayor of Istanbul on March 31st by around 24,000 votes over former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim ( AKP ). Istanbul had previously been ruled by Islamic conservative mayors for 25 years, including the AKP politician and later President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . On May 6, 2019, at the instigation of the AKP, the High Election Committee canceled the election result in Istanbul because of suspected irregularities. Seven members of the High Election Committee voted for the new election, four against. Politicians from home and abroad criticized the decision. İmamoğlu described the committee's decision as "treason". Abroad, the decision was generally seen as "the result of pressure from government leaders". In an analysis in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , Hasan Gökkaya writes: "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made it. At the urging of his AKP, the Turkish electoral authority canceled the mayoral elections in Istanbul and scheduled a new election ... Officially, the electoral authority is independent. A real explanation she did not consider it necessary on Monday evening for why she canceled the mayoral election in Istanbul. It was significant that it was not the chairman of the election commission who announced the decision, but an AKP representative. Erdoğan had previously only vaguely spoken of manipulation by the opposition - how, when and where it should have come about remains unclear. At the moment, it must be assumed that the electoral authority did not make a neutral decision. "

Sadi Güven himself, as the long-time President of the High Electoral Committee, said in a personal statement that "the cancellation of the mayoral election in Istanbul was insufficiently justified. He himself therefore voted against it".

2019: motion to cancel the 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections

Following the cancellation of the mayoral election in Istanbul in May 2019 in response to a complaint from the AKP, the CHP asked the election committee to cancel the 2018 presidential election in Turkey and the early parliamentary election in Turkey in 2018 . Both votes were held on June 24, 2018. The CHP relies on the fact that the election officials in the 2018 elections were nominated in the same way as in the 2019 election in Istanbul. In the election of the mayor, the AKP had mentioned irregularities in the formation of the election bodies; an ACP representative of the committee had justified that in some polling stations helpers were illegally deployed who were not employees of the state. The CHP also moved to have the local election results of March 2019 in the 39 districts of Istanbul invalid.

The High Electoral Authority unanimously rejected this request. The weekly newspaper Zeit wrote: "To justify their decision to hold a new election in Istanbul, the electoral authority stated that not all of the helpers at the ballot boxes were state employees - as the regulations stipulate. According to the opposition, the helpers are in the other elections nominated in the same way as in the canceled mayoral election. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Benjamin Gourisse: A non-consensual transformation of the political arena: The authorization of a multi-party system and the introduction of alternance of power in Turkey (1945-1950) . Revue française de science politique, Volume 65, No. 3 (2015), pp. 49–67
  2. Tarihçe , TC Yüksek Seçim Kurulu, accessed on May 8, 2019
  3. Yüksek Seçim Kurulu Üyeleri , TC Yüksek Seçim Kurulu, accessed on May 8, 2019
  4. ^ Markus Bernrath: Storm of indignation after Erdoğan referendum. In: derStandard.at. April 18, 2017. Retrieved April 21, 2017 .
  5. tagesschau.de: Turkey: allegations of manipulation after constitutional referendum. Retrieved April 21, 2017 .
  6. Turkish opposition goes to supreme court. In: orf.at . April 21, 2017.
  7. Turkish opposition fails in administrative court. In: tagesspiegel.de . April 25, 2017.
  8. ^ Controversy over new elections in Istanbul. "The Turkish people have been robbed of their will" , t-online.de , May 7, 2019.
  9. ^ ZEIT ONLINE: Election in Istanbul: Head of the electoral authority sees no need for new elections . In: The time . May 23, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed June 22, 2019]).
  10. Istanbul's mayor speaks of treason. In: Spiegel Online . May 7, 2019.
  11. ^ ZEIT ONLINE: Election in Istanbul: Head of the electoral authority sees no need for new elections . In: The time . May 23, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed May 26, 2019]).
  12. Hasan Gökkaya in ZEIT ONLINE: Preservation of power at any price . In: The time . May 7, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed June 22, 2019]).
  13. ^ ZEIT ONLINE: Election in Istanbul: Head of the electoral authority sees no need for new elections . In: The time . May 23, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed June 22, 2019]).
  14. Turkish opposition objects to presidential elections. In: Spiegel Online . May 8, 2019.
  15. ^ Opposition requests that the presidential and parliamentary elections be canceled. In: Zeit Online . May 8, 2019.
  16. Electoral authority rejects cancellation of presidential and parliamentary elections In: Zeit Online . May 13, 2019.
  17. ^ Opposition requests that the presidential and parliamentary elections be canceled. In: Zeit Online . May 8, 2019.