Western media have stepped up their attacks against Turkey in the wake of Sunday’s local election showdown by spreading misinformation about the results and launching smear campaigns targeting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Headlines from Western newspapers and journals on Monday morning all drew false conclusions in a bid to paint the landslide nationwide win by the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party in the municipal race as a defeat to serve their own anti-Turkey agendas.
An article run by British news agency Reuters on Monday called local election results “a blow” for President Erdoğan despite his People’s Alliance winning over 51 percent of the vote on Sunday.
“Defeat for Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted party in Ankara was a significant blow for the president. Losing Istanbul, where he launched his political career and served as mayor in the 1990s, would be an even greater symbolic shock and a broader sign of dwindling support,” the misleading story by Reuters concluded.
Ankara on Monday rejected concerns of the Council of Europe’s election observation mission regarding the local elections in Turkey.
"[...] the doubt that it [mission] voiced over free and fair electoral environment [in Turkey] is baseless," Hami Aksoy, spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said in a statement.
Aksoy’s remarks came after Andrew Dawson, head of the observation mission, said: “We from the Congress of the Council of Europe are not fully convinced that Turkey currently has the free and fair electoral environment which is necessary for genuinely democratic elections in line with European values and principles.”
Twenty-two observers from 20 countries operated in the cities of the country including Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir to observe the election procedures in polling stations.
On Sunday millions of Turkish citizens cast ballots in the local elections to choose Turkey’s mayors, city council members, mukhtars (neighborhood officials), and members of elder councils for the next five years.
Turkey's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party led the weekend local elections, capturing 15 metropolitan municipalities (larger cities) and 24 cities, according to early results as of Monday morning.
AK Party candidates got the support of 44.3 percent of voters on Sunday, beating the 30.1 percent draw of the main opposition Republican People's Party’s (CHP), which won mayoral races in 11 metropolitan municipalities and 10 cities.
