Voting day in Turkey: Nearly 53 million voting 194,000 polling stations

As the government battles a sweeping corruption scandal that implicated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his close associates, people have begun to vote at thousands of polling stations to reflect their rection about the graft scandal at the ballot box.

The voting began early in the morning at 08:00 a.m. After months of street protests and claims that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has been involved in corruption and bribery to a massive degree, the Turkish people now have a chance to formally express their opinion about the government and to decide on the country’s local management for the next five years.

Today’s local elections are the first polls held since domestic turmoil became a feature of public life in the country, starting with protests over the proposed demolishing of Gezi Park near Taksim Square in central İstanbul, which subsequently evolved into a general expression of dissatisfaction with AK Party rule. Tensions rose further following a corruption scandal that broke out on Dec. 17 of last year, implicating senior figures in the ruling party, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In what have been widely interpreted as efforts to distract attention from the damaging accusations, the AK Party has alleged that a variety of vague entities — including a “foreign conspiracy” and a “parallel state” — are behind the accusations. Most prominently, the government has entered into a bitter feud with their one-time allies, the Hizmet movement, inspired by US-based Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen, who Erdoğan has denounced using a number of colorful insults.

After weeks of election campaigning, dominated by offensive rhetoric against the Hizmet movement and labeling his critics “assassins” and “terrorists,” the prime minister lost his voice during one memorable rally, addressing the gathered crowds in a bizarre falsetto.

In total, 52,695,832 voters are able to participate in the local elections. Of these potential voters, 26,704,757 are women and 25,991,075 are men. Voters are able to elect their preferred representatives at 194,310 polling stations.

On the ballot slips, people vote separately for provincial council officials, mayors, municipal council members, metropolitan municipal mayors and neighborhood representatives (muhtars). Ballots for provincial councilors will be put into orange envelopes, while those for mayors, municipal council members and metropolitan municipality mayors will be put into blue envelopes. In the elections being held in towns and villages, ballots will be put into purple envelopes.

A total of 26 political parties are fighting for official representation. In order to place their votes, voters need to visit polling stations with official identification documents that shows their Turkish Republic identity number and photo. Options include a passport, marriage certificate, certificate of military service, driving license or attorney identity card.

Prisoners can also use their right to vote during the local elections. These voters are able to vote using identification documents issued by prison authorities if they do not possess other identity documents. Voters who reside in towns are voting for provincial council officials, town neighborhood elders and members of the council of elders, while citizens living in rural areas will vote for provincial council members, municipality council officials, village heads and members of neighborhood councils of elders.

Voters living in metropolitan cities, however, will vote for metropolitan municipality mayors, municipality mayors, municipality council members, neighborhood officials and members of neighborhood councils of elders.

30.03.2014
SSOURCE: MEDIA