First statement from AKP's Öntürk after receiving his mandate in Hatay

Following the victory of the People's Alliance candidate Mehmet Öntürk in the March 31 local elections in Hatay, the CHP had filed an objection with the YSK, requesting a rerun of the elections based on allegations of irregularities. 

In a statement made in the evening, the YSK announced that the CHP's application had been rejected. Following the decision, Hatay Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Mehmet Öntürk made statements.

"THERE WERE NO OBJECTIONS"

Describing the process that took place after the polls closed on March 31, Mayor Öntürk said, "Yes, first of all, our Hatay has won.

By ensuring the unity and solidarity of our Hatay, we will rebuild this ancient city together with our history and culture. Of course, there were CHP officials, the mayor, and his entourage who acted emotionally due to the feelings of losing the election.

As you know, on the evening of March 31, there is a committee of the election board at the ballot boxes. There are ballot box committee chairs, a deputy chair. There are also representatives of the first four parties according to the vote share there. Additionally, there are observers. 

There are observer cards for everyone, whether they are running in the election or not, both for those who do not have representatives and for parties that do. Now, in such an environment, the ballots are counted and opened. The minutes are finalized with wet signatures. This is the election rule.

They record these and they come to the district election judgeship. One copy comes there. One copy is given to the members there, and these go to their parties. We also collected these in our party. We did our work from our members there. While collecting these, while collecting the wet-signed minutes, there may be errors. Those are corrected. Such errors can always be corrected. 

District election boards collect these. Later, they bring them to the provincial election boards. This is how the story of the election goes. We won this election by over three thousand votes. Later, a few errors were made in the total of these wet-signed minutes in a few districts where there were material errors. These were also corrected, and the election was brought to a conclusion. There were no objections at the ballot boxes. Only in Reyhanlı, there was an objection in one or two ballot boxes due to the headmanship (muhtarlık), it was counted, there is no problem.

In Belen, there was an objection counted again due to the headmanships in one ballot box. There is no problem. Later, when they realized they lost the election in 15 districts, they objected. There is a perception that the objection was accepted in the Samandağ district. But there is something like this here. The judge and members there reject it. They say, 'This is what you did irregularly,' we do not have a representative there.

There are representatives of the TİP, CHP, DEM, and İYİ Party. Because we cannot send a representative by law as we do not have enough votes in Samandağ. The decision comes out four to three. This decision is not a decision to reopen and count the ballots, it is an objection. We carried this to the province, they rejected it. It was carried to the YSK, and the YSK also rejected it. Based on this, our mandate was given by the district judgeship on Saturday," he said.

Mayor Öntürk stated that they started working to rebuild the city as soon as they took office, saying, "We are striving to rebuild our city as soon as we arrive. We are at the head of our work. Today, the YSK has already made its decision legally, and we are continuing our duty. We are looking at our work. Our only concern is to rebuild this city," he expressed.

News Source: İHA

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