CHP’s (Republican People’s Party) presidential candidate Muharrem İnce stated that they would not allow vote rigging in the squares. However, he stated in a press conference the day after the elections on June 25, “They did steal votes, but eventually not 10 million votes”. In fact, the number of votes below 1 million would allow whole of Turkey to be relieved.
The system did not exist, nor did sufficient number of officials.
No need to search for deep conspiracy theories, what happened during that “mysterious night” was quite simple. It is true that CHP’s system did not work, but this information is missing something. Why? Because the data was never sent to the system from the ballots boxes. There weren’t enough officials as stated. The information that there were 600 thousand officials was a big lie.
We all watched it from AA (Anadolu Agency).
The calculations of CHP are always a rough draft and far from seriousness. Bülent Tezcan, the Vice Chairman of CHP, said, “Do not take the manipulations serious, the elections will have a second round, when we made the announcement, the system had 5% data entry”. No, while this announcement was being made, the Fair Elections Platform system had 8.5% data entry. No regular data entries were made afterwards. But then, suddenly the entries gathered speed. That was the exact point when the data started to be received from YSK (Supreme Electoral Council). “We lost” announcement was made after this. Unfortunately, we all watched the results from the Anadolu Agency (AA) with the data received from Supreme Council (YSK). It was not surprising that the results broadcasted by the AA few days prior to the elections were similar.
They knew they lost at a very early stage.
Was the election lost with the votes which were not compared and not given information about? Of course not. Haluk Pekşen, CHP’s 25th and 26th term MP from Trabzon, was waving the documents in his hand in the parliament when he said, “This election allegiance and the security of the elections are a huge story. There are two main titles of this story. There is a single point which was forgotten. You had forgotten to put ballot boxes in the cemeteries. Because voters were generated from the cemeteries. Exactly 2 million 537 thousand people still seem to be alive even though they are dead. Like that was not enough, unable to slow down, you also had generated voters from unborn individuals who have never seen the light of day, by issuing fake citizen numbers for them. The voters are fake, it would be very brave to await real results from fake votes.”
No data received from CHP, nor HDP
What happened in the CHP Election Unit that evening? Let us give you what we received from reliable sources: “There are way too many problems. The Fair Elections Platform did not work. There is no security measures taken against possible attacks. Because there are no competent people to handle this. So few of the data were reached. They say we have officials next to every single ballot box. This is not true. No provincial or district organization would confess they don’t have officials. This means politically being done for
The individual in the digital base is the only visible one who is in charge. But the list is long. The individual who is responsible from the organization is the organization secretary or the general secretary. These individuals are responsible to assign people next to the ballot boxes. There are primary elections and congress. Everybody must get along with the other, thus nobody will speak, nor will tell the truth. It was loudly put into words that no data was being received from HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) around 20:30. At one point, the data was entered very fast. Right from that moment on, we are guessing that they started to copy the data directly from YSK”.
There wasn’t a Plan B.
So, did the presidential candidate Muharrem Ince not know about the potential problems which are likely to happen in the system, and also the lack of officials? “Of course he did, he grew up within the organization. He only did not manage to guess that such a huge problem could be faced in the Elections Coordination Centre. He was thinking like, “The public opinion would suppress, the vanguards would show up, and then we would go in front of YSK” after everything”.
A suspended CHP and İnce’s turning point
Obviously there wasn’t a plan B. When they were suspended at one point in the evening of the elections, there was a hesitation. Most probably a decision was taken during this hesitation. Also, the barricades set up in front of the Palace, AK-militia who had bulletproof wests and automatic rifles, jihadist gatherings, and the paramilitaries who were prepared for such days had an effect over this decision. The video footage which was recorded in the intersection of Sultangazi and Habipler, showed the people carrying automatic rifles, and firing them into the air. The conversations were terrifying: “Both men and women have guns, there are no problems”. It was noted that the politicians who have been warned for years did not take such topics as serious as the journalists. The loss would be huge at this point. It was already too late.
Beyond a conspiracy theory: Right under our eyes
Mahir Ünal from AKP, who was clearly uneasy in all extents, filled the gap with intimidation. He said, “YSK data is reliable”, and summarized what could happen in case anybody goes out in the streets, “Turkey is one of the most reliable among the countries in Europe and the world about the safety of the elections, and also one of the fastest in terms of announcing the election results. There is no room for doubt about the results. Questioning the institutions of Turkey, which is a state of law, and creating stains and defaming are among the points which will damage our unity and solidarity. Especially targeting specific institutions and threatening them, and the devastating results which would arise by provoking their own followers would solely be under the responsibility of the related candidates without a doubt.”
And the conspiracy theories are refuted with this statement. However, there is another picture which overshadows these theories. The party in power would not condescend to the leaders of the People’s Alliance or İnce being kidnapped or detained. They went way too far and offered the options in front of millions. We couldn’t see this because we were paralyzed at first. Mahir Ünal in fact said, “We are saying the elections are safe. But we know that you do not believe this. It is your decision, if you go out in the streets to protest, there will be a heavy price to pay, and it will be your responsibility”. Let alone winking at a domestic war, he was winking at a massacre. There was another thing which was more interesting. Ünal did not know the “ballot box problems” the opposition were facing.
Contrary to the opposition, the party in power had plans A, B, and C. They did not leave the job to digital intervention, chance or intimidation. It was a multilayered preparation. They were going to win either if it was heads or tails. And that was what happened.
They fooled us viciously.
So, what really happened that night? Very few things, or nothing at all… 600 thousand officials never existed.
CHP did not manage to enter data into the system.
HDP did not manage to enter data into the system.
The system was not working in the first place.
In the meantime, the cemetery votes processed by digital intervention.
Leaders did not know what to do.
And once received the threats… “The man won”, and he made his balcony speech.
June 24th never happened. It was an illusion, a game of shadow. In reality, everything was finished long ago with the processes of June 7th and November 1st, July 15th, and April 16th, and when they passed the decree-law 696, which allowed the people, who shoot others and are close to the party in power, to have a wall of security, and when the Electoral Alliance Law was prepared. We have forgotten our faithful citizens after these dates right next to the ballot boxes. Somebody fooled us viciously. They stole the date June 24th completely, they allowed the June 24th to be stolen.
Erk Acarer is a columnist for Turkish Birgun Daily.
The original version of this article first appeared in Turkish at: https://www.birgun.net/yazarlar/erk-acarer-294.html
