THE Council of Europe (CoE) warned Turkey’s Supreme Election Board (YSK) that it was flouting the basic principles of democracy by handing six municipalities to ruling party candidates who finished second in the elections.

In a letter to election board chief Sadi Guven, CoE secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland raised concerns over the awarding of certificates of election to candidates belonging to authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) instead of the winning candidates of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP).

HDP officials hit out at political pressure put on the YSK by Mr Erdogan, leading to “unlawful and unfair decisions that seek to effectively change election results and turn the failure of the ruling party into a victory.”

Demonstrations took place after the election board handed the mandate to AKP mayoral candidates in the largely Kurdish south-eastern districts of Tekman in Erzurum, Caldiran, Edremit and Tusba in Van province and Dagpinar in Kars province.

In the Baglar district of urban Diyarbakir, the AKP was handed the mayoral mandate despite the HDP candidate topping the poll with 70.4 per cent of the vote.

Mr Jagland said the decision was “against the general principles of democracy” after the election board ruled that the winning HDP candidates were ineligible to take public office based on their previous dismissal under the state of emergency which followed the failed coup of 2016.

He wrote: “It is, however, our understanding that all of these candidatures had been checked and validated before the elections by various authorities, including the YSK. 

“Therefore the YSK’s decision to bar the elected candidates from assuming office raises questions concerning rule of law standards.”

HDP spokesman Hisyar Ozsoy warned that the move showed the YSK was “not an independent and impartial institution to ensure the safety of elections,” alleging that the decisions violated the law and the Turkish constitution.

The local elections were a disaster for Mr Erdogan, whose party failed to win the capital Ankara and the major city of Izmir.

He demanded a full recount of votes in Istanbul after former prime minister Binali Yildirim lost to People’s Republican Party candidate Ekrem Imamoglu.

However, after two weeks of political pressure, the YSK finally gave Mr Imamoglu the mandate today to become mayor of Istanbul. 

It was a major blow to Mr Erdogan, with Istanbul being the symbolic birthplace of the AKP and parties associated with him winning every election there since 1994.

Despite the letter, the CoE offered no threat of action against Ankara.