Women to be vigilant against stolen votes in June 7 election

2015-05-28 11:55:18

DİYARBAKIR (DİHA) -  With a long history of election fraud incidents in Turkey, the many grassroots women activists of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) have prepared an alert system and elections monitoring training. They are hoping to prevent irregularities at the polls in Turkey's June 7th election.

There will be 173,000 distinct polling stations in Turkey on June 7. Turkey has a long history of elections irregularities. But the incentives and conditions for elections fraud are particularly high in Turkey's June 7 election. If the opposition party HDP ends up under the 10% electoral threshold for a party to enter parliament, all of its votes will be transferred to the next most successful party—almost certainly the ruling AKP. The AKP also controls vast amounts of state resources in Turkey, which it has already used in extralegal waysto run an aggressive campaign. HDP members say the AKP's campaign has been focused almost exclusively on a smear campaign against the HDP, designed to drive the party under the 10% threshold.

The HDP, which aims for gender parity in all arenas and has released a comprehensive pro-women election plan, has been bombarded with women volunteers applying to be poll observers, says Nevim Yakut Günay, who coordinates HDP elections operations for the province of Diyarbakır. The party is working to ensure that there are women observers at every one of the province's 3,141 polling stations. She explained that women feel a particular urgency to protect their votes given their large role in the party.

"Women have taken part in every level of the HDP from the beginning," said Günay, explaining why the work against election fraud is so important to women. "As candidates, coordinators, in elections operations and in the organization of women's bureaus, they're been taking part in every level. So women have put in a lot of effort. Taking ownership of and protecting this effort, again, falls to women."

'Women are determined to protect the sanctity of their vote'

She said women are determined to protect the sanctity of their vote and their effort to get a party based on women's equality into Turkey's Parliament. Günay says that in previous elections, women have operated as informal observers, waiting at the polls all day to guard against fraud—but that this time, women are organizing and registering as election observers.

"On election day, women are going to be out there, in the schools, at the polls," Günay said.

(cm/nt)