President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has approved a set of controversial set of legal amendments overhauling Turkey’s election and political party laws, with opposition voices warning that the changes will undermine ballot box security ahead of key elections in 2019.
The 26-article package of changes was published in the Official Gazette on March 16 after being signed into law by Erdoğan. The changes stipulate that political parties be able to form pre-election alliances, while introducing a number of significant amendments to the Election Law.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have expressed serious concerns over the latter, warning that they could put election security at risk.
With the law, unstamped envelopes will be counted valid while the “relocation” of the ballot boxes will be possible due to “security reasons.” The law also changes the composition of ballot station committees, appointing senior state officials as the head of the committees instead of representatives of the political parties.