Cyprus-Forum.com

[DT.]

An interesting little detail. At the ballot box where son of ex-president Abdullah Gül, one of the founding members of the AKP, voted, two ‘no’ and no ‘yes’ votes emerged.



http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turk ... iasi_.html

Is he in prison yet?

[Tim Drayton]

His dad should go to jail for not bringing him up right.

[Tim Drayton]

It keeps on getting better. Journalist Kemal Göktaş had commented that this issue could not go the European Court of Human Rights because the European Convention on Human Rights does not cover referendums - and he knows what he is talking about when it comes to the law. However, the Supreme Election Council in rejecting the CHP's objection to the result yesterday made specific reference to the European Convention on Human Rights to justify the acceptance of unstamped voting slips, which everyone knows the ballot boxes were stuffed with by the AKP to rig the poll. My guess is, in referring in desperation to the convention in the attempt to justify and unjusifiable decision they were instructed from above to pass, they have just opened the way to the ECHR!
There is no way on earth the SEC can deem unstamped voting slips to be valid, especially after the count had started, when this is in violation of an express provision of the Election Law and a landmark Constitutional Court ruling from 2014 and also contradicts information the SEC put out prior to the poll, and when this so-called 'rule' was not applied to the foreign votes that had previously been counted.
No, this time Erdoğan and the evil bunch of crooks around him have slipped up and they are going to get the come-uppance they has been waiting for years. I get a good feeling in my bones.

[Tim Drayton]

Brilliant comments from the CHP’s spokesperson Selin Sayek Böke:

The referendum did not result in ‘yes’ and no constitutional amendment has taken place. The referendum held on 16 April is null. This was a blatant ‘stampless’ poll. At every stage of the referendum, resort was made to all manner of cheating and fraud. The endeavour was made to obtain the result, which was not obtained with the people’s vote, through a series of frauds by means facilitated by the Supreme Election Council and organised with these means. This referendum is not even tainted or disputed. This referendum is clearly illegal. It is illegitimate and invalid. Millions who went to the polls in the face of intimidation of all kinds, the millions who voted without engaging in any fraud and with their consciences saw these valuable votes that they had cast stolen in a fraudulently engineered fait accompli. What was stolen was the national will. Our will has been usurped.

Resort was made to all manner of fraud and cheating to turn the ‘no’ result into ‘yes’. A perception management operation is being conducted with fraud and hasty balcony speeches. You can never hide the truth with this. The millions and we will not permit this. We do not recognise this referendum result that was proclaimed. Nor will we do so. We bear responsibility for the bold millions that went to the polls in the face of difficulties, duress and intimidation of all kinds and voted honestly. We are also aware that we bear this responsibility.

I call out from here to the millions who are standing up for their votes: we will all stand in unison and defend everybody’s votes until the end come what may. We will never permit our will to be stolen in a fait accompli. This referendum must be repeated in a way that permits this will to prevail.

If anybody thinks that we will take a step back and continue on our way, deeming the illegitimate to be legitimate, they are very much mistaken.

This referendum will be repeated. We will not act as if a non-existent new constitution existed. We will not be part of this game. We will not bow to faits accomplis. Let nobody have the slightest doubt that we will make recourse to all legal means and all manner of legitimate democratic rights and will also do this on behalf of the millions. Turkey has stood up for democracy. The millions and we will continue to do so. We will exercise all our democratic rights and this includes both withdrawing from parliament and also continuing to work in parliament. We will deliberate on all of this in our committee, but we will take the correct step that will permit us to stand up for the popular will and we will without fail make democracy prevail in Turkey. Our competent committees will start to hold detailed meetings in the coming days so as to deliberate on these things. We will not be party to any step that will legitimise an illegitimate result.

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/engl ... _null.html

[Tim Drayton]

Maybe Nasty Man does not like Nasty Man; Nasty Man likes filthy lucre?

Could Trump's Financial Ties Have Influenced His Phone Call With Erdogan?

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... st/523485/

[Tim Drayton]

It still gets better - at 2,397 ballot boxes, more votes were cast than there were voters!

http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/turk ... cikti.html

[Tim Drayton]

Curious. I have to pinch myself to believe it. The Western press is waking up to what is happening in Turkey. A few years ago, all it ever said was that Erdoğan was a fine, upstanding Islamist democrat, and looked the other way during events such as the 2010 referendum on constitutional amendment including a dangerous change that brought the judiciary under direct political control.

Erdogan organized a sham ballot, using tactics familiar among dictators. The authorities manipulated both the casting and counting of ballots. Erdogan quickly declared victory, creating a fait accomplis.

The referendum marks the death of Turkish democracy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mas ... 372700dade

One observer group said that 2.5 million votes — roughly twice the margin of victory — are under question. “It seems credible that 2.5 million were manipulated, but we are not 100 percent sure,” Andrej Hunko, a German lawmaker who observed the election on behalf of the Council of Europe, said by telephone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/worl ... fraud.html

Erdogan may control the media in Turkey, but no matter how dedicated his partisans are to him, he cannot suppress evidence of massive fraud which seems to have changed the outcome of the referendum.

Erdogan may see himself as president, but if he does not allow independent bodies to recount ballots based on the actual rules put in place before the election, he will be seen not only by the outside world but also by more than half of all Turks as little more than one more coup leader in Turkey’s troubled history.

https://www.aei.org/publication/more-tu ... d-exposed/

What critics claim is the openly fraudulent Turkish referendum ends parliamentary democracy in the country and gives President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dictatorial powers. The most unexpected aspect of the poll on Sunday was not the declared outcome, but that the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) allegedly found it necessary to fix the vote quite so blatantly.

The tightness of the final outcome of the referendum – 51.4 per cent “yes” to the constitutional changes and 48.59 per cent voting “no” – shows that the “no” voters would have been in the majority in any fairly conducted election.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/tur ... 87246.html

[Jerry]

Well said Tim, it's also about time the Western Press woke up to what Turkey has been doing to Cyprus since 1974. Hopefully the new Sultan will stay in power and the West (apart from the other crook, Trump) will see him for what he is.

I'm off to see my MP (quite a senior one) this afternoon to see what he has to say about the UK's cosying up to Erdogan while Turkey illegally occupies and colonises Cyprus.

[Tim Drayton]

I hope this will be the undoing of the evil man, and he will end up spending many days, indeed months, in court as he is held to account for the vast catalogue of crimes he has committed.

[Tim Drayton]

The domestic legal process has not yet finished. The opposition CHP, its objection to the Supreme Election Council having been denied by ten votes to one (what will happen to that one man now?), has submitted a statement of claim to the Council of State this afternoon, in which it is also calling for a stay order to prevent the result from becoming final until the claim is heard. On paper, they have an open and shut case because there is a clearly-worded express provision in the Election Law that unstamped voting slips are invalid. Nobody can override that provision. Of course, the judiciary has now become a mechanism that simply rubberstamps the dictator's orders, and that is another matter. Jurists are divided over whether this can go to the Constitutional Court and also whether, if domestic remedies are exhausted, this can go to the European Court of Human Rights, and also whether the court can annul a referendum and would be prepared to take such a step that is political in nature. The referendum result is not final yet. There remains a small hope that it can be annulled through legal means.