Voices within Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have risen in protest against the decision on Monday to cancel the opposition’s victory in the March 31 local election and run the vote again.
Former AKP president Abdullah Gül, denounced the YSK’s decision via Twitter on Tuesday.
Gül compared the decision to a decision taken by the Constitutional Court, Turkey’s highest legal body in 2007, when he was out forward as a candidate for the presidency.
At the time, presidential candidates were voten in by parliament, and in a decision many viewed as designed to block Gül, whose Islamist background was viewed with suspicion by many judges at the time, the court ruled that at least 367 deputies must take part in a vote for it to be valid.
Anayasa Mahkemesi’nin 2007 yılındaki haksız “367 Kararı” karşısında ne hissettiysem, başka bir yüksek mahkeme olan Yüksek Seçim Kurulu’nun dün aldığı kararı duyunca aynı duyguları yaşadım.
— Abdullah Gül (@cbabdullahgul) May 7, 2019
Yazık, bir arpa boyu yol alamamışız.
“What I felt in 2007 when the Constitutional Court made its unfair ruling number 367, that is what I felt yesterday when another high court, the Supreme Election Council, made its decision”, Gül said in his tweet on Tuesday.