I was honoured to be asked back to Turkey to lead the only international team to monitor the re-run of the Istanbul municipal election.
Istanbul is an incredible city with over 10.5 million voters spread over 39 districts either side of the Bosphorous. Our monitoring team of 14 drawn from 13 European countries viewed voting at 90 ballot boxes in 30 districts.
It was a tense affair. Many things were at stake - not just for the candidates and their supporters but also for President Erdogan.
The elections were ordered to be re-run as there were reportedly procedural irregularities. Turkish law requires that their Ballot Box Committees are led by Chairs and Deputies drawn from the civil service. Their definition of civil service is broader than ours - including people like teachers, nurses and tax clerks. In March some 754 ballot box committees breached this requirement in some way. However could this technical breach affected the voting? Could any irregularity have been avoided by ordering a re-count?
The legal position appeared to us to be somewhat confused and unsatisfactory - especially when it was only the Municiapal Mayoral election that was re-run - and not any of the other 4 elections for other councillors and mayors that would have been affected by the same irregularity.
Istanbul was tense on Sunday - and 3 of our 6 teams of observers were the subject of unnecessary hostility and intimidation. Worst of all it appears that it was our most mild mannered team members that were singled out for this treatment.
If you are interested and want to see the conclusion of our observations you can watch my press conference here: Frodsham Conservatives
Istanbul is an incredible city with over 10.5 million voters spread over 39 districts either side of the Bosphorous. Our monitoring team of 14 drawn from 13 European countries viewed voting at 90 ballot boxes in 30 districts.
It was a tense affair. Many things were at stake - not just for the candidates and their supporters but also for President Erdogan.
The elections were ordered to be re-run as there were reportedly procedural irregularities. Turkish law requires that their Ballot Box Committees are led by Chairs and Deputies drawn from the civil service. Their definition of civil service is broader than ours - including people like teachers, nurses and tax clerks. In March some 754 ballot box committees breached this requirement in some way. However could this technical breach affected the voting? Could any irregularity have been avoided by ordering a re-count?
The legal position appeared to us to be somewhat confused and unsatisfactory - especially when it was only the Municiapal Mayoral election that was re-run - and not any of the other 4 elections for other councillors and mayors that would have been affected by the same irregularity.
Istanbul was tense on Sunday - and 3 of our 6 teams of observers were the subject of unnecessary hostility and intimidation. Worst of all it appears that it was our most mild mannered team members that were singled out for this treatment.
If you are interested and want to see the conclusion of our observations you can watch my press conference here: Frodsham Conservatives