Some 4,500 new voters registered in gov’t buildings in province lost by AKP

Some 4,450 out-of-town people were registered as voters for the upcoming local elections in seven government buildings in eastern Iğdır province. DEM Party won Iğdır Municipality in the 2019 Local Elections with a difference of 1,514 votes to AKP.

Friday January 12 2024 09:42 am

Ferhat Yaşar / Gazete Duvar

Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) revealed that 4,449 new people in their 20s were registered as voters to Eastern Iğdır province even though they were not from the province and voted in different provinces in the 2023 General Elections.

They were registered in the addresses of three police stations, two buildings of the provincial security directorate, and a family health center building in different neighborhoods. Among them, 798 people were registered in a building under construction.

DEM Party won Iğdır Municipality against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with a difference of 1,514 votes in the 2019 Local Elections. The government in 2020 appointed a trustee to the mayorship like various other DEM Party municipalities.

DEM Party Iğdır lawmaker Yılmaz Hun accused the AKP of using fraudulent methods at a press conference on the issue and said, “We are once again witnessing how helpless the AKP has become in Kurdish provinces. The AKP government is resorting to the trick of transporting voters to the municipalities, including Iğdır province, where they cannot win the municipalities through elections. Most of the voters they transport live abroad. These people have never been to Iğdır and have never seen this city.”

Previously, DEM Party stated that thousands of soldiers and police officers were registered at addresses that did not exist before in the constituencies where its predecessor Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) had won the local elections.

Iğdır Municipality, where the HDP came to power with 50.1 percent of the vote, was plunged into debt after the appointment of a trustee on May 15, 2020.

The municipality had a debt of 450 million Turkish liras in mid-2023 and all tenders were awarded to the company belonging to the family the provincial chair of AKP for six years in the city. The Mesopotamia Agency revealed that the company belonging to the family has been awarded at least 15 tenders for a total of 58.8 million liras.

(English version by Can Bodrumlu)