Ahmet Türk and Figen Altındağ, who were elected as co-mayors of the southeastern Turkish city of Mardin last Sunday from the ranks of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), are not being given the mandate due to an objection from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate despite a huge difference in the number of votes, the Mesopotamia news agency reported.
Turkey held local elections on March 31. Türk and Altındağ received 208,854 votes, while the AKP’s candidate Mehmet Vejdi Kahraman received 143,060 votes. The difference in the number of votes between the HDP and AKP candidates is 65,794.
Normally, Türk and Altındağ were expected to be given the mandate on Monday but Mardin Provincial Election Board told their lawyers that the mandate will not be given now on the grounds that the AKP asked the election board for a recount of 19,373 invalid votes in the province.
Although the Mardin Provincial Election Board rejected the AKP’s request for a recount of the invalid votes in the province on the grounds that the election result would not change, the AKP took its objection to the Supreme Election Board (YSK).
Although AKP candidates lost in many big provinces against opposition candidates, according to unofficial results, the opposition candidates including İstanbul mayor-elect Ekrem İmamoğlu have not yet been declared the winners due to the AKP’s objections to the election results.