In the decisive hours of the municipal elections, the state-run Anadolu news Agency did not publish any election results. Critics smell already a conspiracy of the government party, the AKP.
While in most Turkish cities, the municipal election was already decided, the result was in Istanbul are open all through the night. The race between the AKP candidate and Erdogan Familiar Binali Yıldırım and the candidate of the opposition CHP Ekrem Imanoglu was a razor-thin affair. First of all, Yıldırım was clearly in front, but then the lead melted steadily.
Shortly before midnight, the social democratic tracker was only a few thousand votes behind the ACP candidate. But then no further information from Istanbul came. The voters remained for 13 hours in the dark about whether or not had happened a Sensation or not: Istanbul after 25 years of a mayor of the largest opposition party, the CHP?
The Turkish news Agency Anadolu is the mistress of the data. They are well researched, the results of the counts and distributes them to the media. The management of the Agency, however, decided not to in the night of the election, to inform the Turkish media. “In Istanbul, where the votes of the candidates are very close to each other, it was the Best of the count to pause, and to wait until all the data have been received,” it said in a terse statement.
Unusual Approach
Critics see the unusual action as evidence that the news Agency wanted to allow it at the last Moment of an election victory for the AKP. The President of the journalists ‘ Association of Izmir, Mislet Dikmen, told DW: “Why the AA has published for a long time no more data, she has not communicated to us.” Dikmen calls for an explanation for the interruption of the data flow. It is arrogant to provide any explanation, he criticizes.
Many Turks something Else to drives: The Agency refuses to provide information, where it relates to your Numbers at all. The angry opposition voters and journalists. “We don’t know the sources. If you don’t call the source, and no explanation delivered, you should kick your boss Senol Kazanci,” said Dikmen.
Insider: no one knows the source
Two former and active employees of the Anadolu DW said that they did not know at the Moment where the data comes from. An Insider explained that a special technical Service to take care of the choice of data. The majority of Agency staff have no access to the System for the Transmission of data.
In Ankara, Istanbul and in the Kurdish areas will be re-counted, because the AKP has appealed the result of the election
The former General Director Mehmet Güler, ran between 1997 and 2003, the Agency said DW: “When data of a certain party, then the choice favors manipulation.” To his time, a representative of the Agency gathered in each city, the data themselves.
Already before the local elections the level of trust in Anadolu was disturbed. The news Agency, in Turkey, in a monopoly position, is not impartial, it was already in the run-up to the elections. Is: it is dependent on the government – 57 percent are in the possession of the family Ministry. The Rest of the shares belong to private persons. In a complex structure of the AKP government is an important business partner of the Agency.
There Is No Precedent?
In the last Turkish local elections in 2014, there was evidence of a closeness between Anadolu and the Turkish government. The former Agency chief Kemal Öztürk appeared after the elections in the party headquarters of the ACP and said that with his ties with the party in government: “I have worked for ten years for this party. I have had dozens of my friends there, I was friends with Ministers.”
As before, Anadolu has not explained why it came to the interruption of the Transmission of data; also the source of the Figures remains open. This sorgtin of the Turkish Public for conspiracy theories. It is feared that the cooperation between the Turkish government and the Agency, further elections have been rigged.