Report on Turkey’s referendum submitted by international election observers

International election observers said the Turkish referendum was an uneven contest. They handed their report to Turkey’s electoral board on April 18.

The referendum was on constitutional changes that would give President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers. Preliminary results showed 51.4 percent in favor of the changes.

Observers are sent from the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights body. They said the media coverage of the referendum was one-sided and dominated by the “Yes” campaign and the arrests of journalists and closure of media outlets silenced other views.
“The referendum took place in a political environment in which fundamental freedoms essential to a genuinely democratic process were curtailed under the state of emergency, and the two sides did not have equal opportunities to make their case to the voters,” said Tana de Zulueta, head of the ODIHR limited election observation mission.

“We observed the misuse of state resources, as well as the obstruction of ‘No’ campaign events. The campaign rhetoric was tarnished by some senior officials equating ‘No’ supporters with terrorist sympathizers, and in numerous cases ‘No’ supporters faced police interventions and violent scuffles at their events,” de Zulueta added.

“In general, the referendum did not live up to Council of Europe standards. The legal framework was inadequate for the holding of a genuinely democratic process,” said Cezar Florin Preda, head of the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

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