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Will voter turnout determine the election results?

In the elections of June 7, 2015, the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) managed to gain 100 percent of the votes of the 2350 ballot boxes in the eastern and southeastern regions of Turkey, according to information provided by the Minister of Environment and Urban Planning Mehmet Özhaseki. Another set of data, which at least as strange as the first, that reveals that the voter turnout in these villages was also 100 percent.

Minister Özhaseki has been shuffling back and forth these past two-and-half-years in the region because he has assumed an active duty to reconstruct the destroyed cities after the trench terrorism ended. In the times of decreasing pressure of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a headman of one of the villages, which was one of the villages that the election results showed was in favor of the HDP in terms of both votes and turnout, explained to the minister of environment how this situation occurred. The village headman told him everything, and the minister listened to him in surprise.

"Before the elections, four or five PKK terrorists came to our village and said, "If you vote for a party other than the HDP, we will kill as many villagers as the votes for other parties."

The village headman asked the PKK, ‘’How would we know who voted for whom?’’

The PKK responded, “If five votes are casted for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), we will take position outside the village and shoot the first five people who emerge from the village.''

‘’How did you manage to get 100 percent voter turnout?’’ the minister asked the village headman.

He answered, ''There wasn’t any other option; we didn’t allow the villagers to come to the polls. We put the ballot papers on the table and pressed a seal on every ballot for the HDP.''

I don’t know whether you are surprised or not.

We are talking about the June 7, 2015 elections, when the PKK put up billboards depicting blood running from a tap in the Van city center. If this was the case in the middle of the city, just imagine what might have happened in the countryside at that time.

After PKK pressure decreased gradually in the villages of southeastern Turkey, the HDP got the majority of the votes again in November 5 elections, which was held five months after the June election 7 elections, and the April 16 referendum, but this time, it got the number of votes it deserved.

In the course of the June 24 elections, I found two types of perception operations conspicuous:

1. "The election will be rigged" propaganda

2. The campaign that roles have been swapped between the blacks living in Turkey and white Turks.

When the Supreme Electoral Council decided that they will put together the ballot boxes which are in danger of security problems if there are any requests, the HDP launched a smear campaign saying, ‘‘Our votes will be stolen.'' It is also known that they continue to spread this in whispers. HDP, like all parties in the system of the transporting of votes will have representatives, which is why the accusation that the votes will be stolen does not make any sense. But, since logic is the last criteria to consider, it is getting hard to handle this subject from this point.

We have witnessed the Republican People's Party (CHP)’s presidential candidate Muharrem İnce approaching the issue from a different angle to influence “our logic settings.” After asking ''Who is Erdoğan, who is İnce?'' in a rally in Istanbul, Muharrem İnce answered the question as follows: ''Let me answer. Erdoğan is a white Turk, I am black. I am Turkey's new black [man].''

How should we take interpret these words? The roles have changed, it was AK Party's followers who used to be oppressed, and today it is the CHP’s followers who are being oppressed.

If our logic settings have stopped working properly, these words might sound logical. But if we were to look at it sociologically, it would be more possible to think that it is not true at all.

If the people who got richer during AK Party’s ruling occurred to you, when scrutinizing closely, there isn't any decline in the living standards of those who vote for the CHP, on the contrary, there is more improvement in their living standards.

But, I wonder what kind of unjust treatment Muharrem İnce has experienced to cause him to say that. Could it be his subconscious talking rather than İnce himself, as the political view represented by Muharrem İnce continues to see themselves more equal among equals?

What do you think about this? There isn’t any more space in my column to come to the point mentioned in my headline. We will continue tomorrow.

#Turkey
#election
6 years ago
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