ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkey’s main opposition party said Wednesday it would challenge the outcome of the country’s April 16 referendum on expanding the president’s powers at the European Court of Human Rights a day after a high court rejected its appeal.
The pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP, is disputing the referendum, which gave President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “yes” side a narrow victory. Critics say there have been a number of irregularities, including an electoral board decision to count ballot papers that lacked official stamps. International monitors also noted irregularities in the voting process and said the decision to validate the unstamped ballots removed an important safeguard against fraud and was in violation of Turkey’s laws.
CHP spokeswoman Selin Sayek Boke announced the party’s decision to take the appeal to the Strasbourg, France-based court after the country’s high administrative court rejected its bid to have the electoral authority’s decision on the unstamped ballot papers overturned. The Supreme Electoral Board also rejected an appeal by the opposition last week.
“It is our duty to protect the votes of every citizen that went to the polls,” Boke said. “We will be applying to the ECHR in the period ahead. We are confident that we will meet again in more enlightened times.”
Erdogan and other government officials have said the electoral authority’s decision is final, and that efforts to challenge it in courts – including the European court – would be futile. The electoral board has published past rulings on the validity of unstamped ballots.