Turkey in 2023: Election Integrity will Be a Key!
E. Oya Özarslan
Turkey is entering a very critical election period this spring, presidential and general elections at the same time. This election is already referred as the “fate election” by most of the people since it is utmost critical to determine the country’s fate if Turkey will go back being a democratic country or it will head straight to authoritarianism.
Turkey has been constantly going down in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index with the latest score of 38 out of 100 in 2022. And it has been one of the countries in the Index loosing the most rankings in the world for the last 9 years. Cronic issues in the public tender system and deep impunity in the corruption paint the picture in general. But irregularities in the last couple of elections also contributed to the situation to deteriorate. People in Turkey have not forgotten about the critical decisions of the High Election Council in the last two elections. In 2017 referandum, Council dedided to validate the unstamped voting papers despite the clear provisions existing in the Election Law and this decision made a turning point in the results. And in 2019, the Council cancelled the Istanbul municipality elections won by CHP, main opposition party, without any valid reason after the ruling party lost in the counting of the votes and Council ordered the rerun of elections. As said in the famous quote, it really is that “It’s not the people who vote that count, it’s the people who count the votes.”
So, there is now a valid question about election integrity in the next spring.
In Turkey, there is no adequate political financing or election campaign financing laws for the general elections, therefore, there is actually no working mechanism for controlling the sources financing the elections. And the law on the financing of presidential elections is poorly enforced, last two presidential election cycles already created concerns about this.
Recent changes in the election law also bring new dimension to this gray picture. It seems that President Erdoğan carrying two hats as the head of the state and the chair of the governing party will be exempt from the restrictions from the election law regarding use of public resources. That means, President will still be able to use state cars, planes and all the other sources of the state during the election period. Therefore, the President will be able to go to party election meetings by using state plane and with the assistance of all government officials. It is unbelievable to even consider such a thing under universal political integrity standards but the law conveniently missed to regulate this point.
Another change is about the appointment of the judges to the local election councils. Before the amendment, most senior and experienced judges must have been appointed to these councils, whose mandate is to resolve the issues and decide on the complaints during the election. Now the seniority requirement is abonded, which could cast a shadow on the whole processes.
The new law also bring some changes about the leftover votes in every election region, which is anticipated to work against the opposition parties.
Finally, recent court decision about Mayor of Istanbul, is another sign that it will hardly be a fair and free election. Court has sentenced İmamoglu, Mayor of Istanbul, to 2 years 7 months and 15 days for a trivial matter, which automatically triggers a political ban to him. If that judicial decision is approved by the Court of Appeal, he, considered to be one of the strong presidential candidates, will be banned from running in the elections. This is what we can call as the clearence of the way, designing the whole scene even before the game starts playing.
We also remember from the last elections that a number of political party representatives, especially from the east of the country, are detained during the time of the elections, so, they were not able to perform the monitoring of the elections in front of the ballot boxes.
The recent OSCE/ODIHR reports state that the last referendum took place on an unlevel playing field and the two sides of the campaign did not have equal opportunities. It was also highlighted that fundamental freedoms were curtailed in the elections and voters were not provided with impartial information due to pressure on media. We should also remember that Disinformation Law is enacted last year that considered to be a powerfull tool for giving a room for arbitrary intervention by the government.
On the other hand, claims about Russia’s intervention to the past US elections are still in our memories. Considering the close relationships between Russia and Turkey, there is always the possibility that Putin administration may appear behind the scenes and intervene to the election results.
So, integrity of the elections is indeed the main concern of the people of Turkey. Will this be a real election as the will of the people prevails or will it be a simulation as mostly seen in competitive authoritarian regimes around the world in which the election is not won before the ballot box in the election day but way before that?
It seems like the results of this “fate election” and the fate of the whole country swinging between the democracy and authoritarianism entirely depends on the integrity of the election.
