Tag Archives: referendum

Gibraltar votes in referendum on easing strict abortion law

By Jon Nazca and Marco Trujillo

GIBRALTAR (Reuters) – Gibraltarians voted in a referendum on Thursday on whether the tiny British territory on the southern tip of Spain should ease one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe.

Its criminal law bans abortion in all circumstances, with a maximum punishment in theory of life in prison. While no one has been convicted, citizens and residents are forced to go to Spain or travel to Britain to have an abortion.

“I think we should be able to have an abortion here, we shouldn’t have to go to a different country just to have an abortion,” 20-year-old student Geraldine told Reuters after casting her vote.

“At the end of the day it is our body, our choice. Other people shouldn’t make the choice for us,” added the student, one of 23,000 Gibraltarians eligible to vote.

The referendum had originally been scheduled for March 2020, but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although penalties are tough, not a single woman or doctor has ever been convicted under the law, a Gibraltar government spokeswoman said.

The referendum is on an amendment to the criminal law that would allow pregnancies to be terminated by a registered physician within the first 12 weeks in cases where the pregnancy carried more risk to the mother’s health than termination.

Abortions would be permitted at a later stage under a narrow set of circumstances.

Even if the changes are approved, the law would be far more restrictive than in most of the rest of Europe.

Pro-life groups say that the wording of the law could be interpreted in a way that would ultimately allow most abortions.

“I’m supporting ‘No’ because I believe life begins at conception and life is sacred and it should be respected until the moment of death,” Susan Gomez, 52, who is a member of the Gibraltar pro-life movement, told Reuters.

“We should give (women who are pregnant) all the support in the world so that abortion never happens”, she said.

Both the government, which has backed the proposed changes, and opposition parties in the enclave encouraged people to vote.

“The government will act in keeping with the views of the people of Gibraltar as expressed … whichever of the two results may come out,” Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, said.

(Reporting by Jon Nazca and Marco Trujillo in Gibraltar. Writing by Emma Pinedo in Madrid)

Turkish opposition lawmaker appeals to European court over referendum

Supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan wave national flags as they wait for his arrival at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) – A lawmaker from Turkey’s main opposition CHP said on Friday he had submitted an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights demanding the annulment of a referendum that granted President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping executive powers.

Musa Cam, a lawmaker for the Republican People’s Party (CHP)from the coastal city of Izmir, told Reuters he submitted an individual appeal independently from the one the party is expected to make to the European Court.

In his application, seen by Reuters, Cam said the decision by Turkey’s High Electoral Board (YSK) to allow unstamped ballots in the referendum had caused the outcome to be “illegitimate and not representative of the people’s will”.

Final results released by the YSK on Thursday showed 51.4 percent support for the “Yes” vote to approve the biggest changes to Turkey’s political system in its modern history.

The results, which matched the preliminary figures released in the hours after polling closed on April 16, were released despite calls by the CHP to delay a final announcement while they appealed the vote. The YSK and a Turkish court, the council of state, have rejected or declined to hear the CHP appeals.

Erdogan and the “Yes” camp have said appeals were an attempt to undermine the results of the vote, adding only the YSK had jurisdiction on the matter.

The package of 18 amendments passed in the referendum gives the president the authority to draft the budget, declare a state of emergency and issue decrees overseeing ministries without parliamentary approval.

With the changes, Erdogan will also immediately be eligible to resume membership of a political party.

Erdogan told Reuters on Tuesday that he would rejoin Turkey’s ruling AK Party once the full results came out, and a senior official said he would be named as a candidate to lead it at an extraordinary congress on May 21.

(This version of the article corrects surname of lawmaker)

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Tuvan Gumrukcu)

Turkey says European rights court has no jurisdiction over referendum

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his deputies Bulent Arinc (not pictured) and Bekir Bozdag (R), speaks during a news conference at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul in this June 3, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Stringer/Files

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s justice minister said on Thursday that any opposition challenge to a referendum that expanded President Tayyip Erdogan’s powers would be rejected by the constitutional court, and Europe’s human rights court had no jurisdiction on the matter.

The main opposition CHP party said on Wednesday it was considering taking its appeal for the referendum to be annulled to Turkey’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights after the country’s electoral authority rejected challenges by the CHP and two other parties.

“If the opposition takes the appeal to the Constitutional Court, the court has no other option than to reject it,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told television news channel A Haber.

“It can also apply to the ECHR, but it cannot achieve a result there either, because the agreements Turkey signed do not give parties the right to apply.”

Bozdag also reiterated government criticism of a report by European election observers who said the referendum, carried out under emergency law, took place on an “unlevel playing field”.

The observers said a last-minute decision by election authorities to allow unstamped ballots to be counted “undermined an important safeguard and contradicted the law which explicitly states that such ballots should be considered invalid”.

Bozdag said the report lacked fairness and objectivity. “Those who prepared this report are partial,” he said.

Sunday’s referendum narrowly backed the largest overhaul of Turkey’s political system since the founding of the republic nearly a century ago, giving Erdogan sweeping authority over the NATO member-state.

But the tight result of a highly charged campaign laid bare divisions and triggered challenges from the opposition over its legitimacy.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Dominic Evans and Mark Trevelyan)

Turkey’s AKP eyes gradual Erdogan return to party after referendum win

Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s ruling AK Party set out plans on Wednesday for President Tayyip Erdogan to gradually take back the party reins, in a sign it would begin implementing changes approved in Sunday’s referendum despite opposition attempts to annul it.

Prime Minister and AKP leader Binali Yildirim said Erdogan can rejoin the party he founded in 2001 once official results of the plebiscite, granting him sweeping powers, are announced. Those results are expected before the end of the month.

But he said the AKP would not hold a party congress until 2018, indicating Erdogan would not officially become its leader until then. There were widespread expectations he would take over the leadership almost immediately after the vote.

“When the High Electoral Board (YSK) announces official results, our president will be able to return to the party,” Yildirim told reporters in front of AKP headquarters.

His comments came as the YSK met to evaluate appeals to annul the referendum and after the bar association and an international monitor said the board had acted illegally by allowing unstamped ballot papers to be counted, and may have swung the vote.

A defiant Erdogan, whose narrow victory exposed the nation’s deep divisions, has said Sunday’s vote ended all debate on the more powerful presidency he has long sought, and Turkey would ignore criticism of the referendum from European observers.

The pro-Kurdish opposition HDP filed an appeal on Wednesday for an annulment on the grounds there had been widespread violations, a day after a similar move by the main opposition CHP. [I7N1G2024]

HDP deputy chairman Mithat Sancar said the vote was undermined by the fact that the campaign was held under emergency rule while the party’s co-leaders were under arrest, that its candidates for polling station monitors were rejected, and that state resources were used in the “yes” campaign.

He said the electoral board’s last-minute decision to allow unstamped ballots had prevented proper record-keeping, meaning that it was now impossible to determine how many invalid or fake votes may have been counted. Some voters had been unable to cast their ballots in private, he added.

“This referendum will forever remain controversial,” he told reporters. “You cannot build a change in the political system on such a controversial and unfair referendum.”

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday a critical report by European observers on the referendum contained several mistakes which he believed were deliberate.

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe said Sunday’s referendum had been an uneven contest.

“The OSCE’s report has no reliability as their observations lack objectivity and are extremely partial,” Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and Mark Trevelyan)

Opponents seek to annul Turkish vote as Erdogan’s new powers become reality

Anti-government demonstrators light flares during a protest in the Kadikoy district of Istanbul, Turkey, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Kemal Aslan

By Gulsen Solaker and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s main opposition began a battle on Tuesday to annul a referendum handing President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping new powers, while the bar association and an international monitor said an illegal move by electoral authorities may have swung the vote.

A defiant Erdogan, whose narrow victory exposed the nation’s deep divisions, has said Sunday’s vote ended all debate on the more powerful presidency he has long sought, and told European observers who criticized it: “talk to the hand”.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, whose job will cease to exist once the constitutional changes take full effect, said Erdogan would be invited to rejoin the ruling AK Party as soon as official results are announced, a sign the government has no intention of waiting to see the outcome of opposition appeals.

Under the outgoing constitution, the president had been required to remain impartial and renounce party political ties.

Few in Turkey expect legal challenges to the referendum to lead to a recount, let alone a re-run. But if unresolved, they will leave deep questions over the legitimacy of a vote which split the electorate down the middle, and whose polarising campaign drew criticism and concern from European allies.

Turkey’s bar association said a last-minute decision by the YSK electoral board to allow unstamped ballots in the referendum was clearly against the law, prevented proper records being kept, and may have impacted the results.

“With this illegal decision, ballot box councils (officials at polling stations) were misled into believing that the use of unstamped ballots was appropriate,” the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) said in a statement.

“Our regret is not over the outcome of the referendum, but because of the desire to overlook clear and harsh violations of the law that have the potential to impact the results,” it said.

The main opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP), which has said it will take its challenge to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary, said it would present a formal appeal to annul the vote to the YSK later on Tuesday.

CHP deputy chairman Bulent Tezcan said the number of missing votes was “unprecedented”, although the exact number of unstamped ballots was unknown.

YSK Chairman Sadi Guven said on Monday the last-minute decision to allow unstamped ballots was not unprecedented as the government had previously permitted such a move.

The head of the electoral board said it had received many complaints that polling stations didn’t have stamps and made the decision to accept the ballots after an appeal from a ruling AK Party official.

An Austrian member of the Council of Europe observer mission said up to 2.5 million votes could have been manipulated, almost double the margin of Erdogan’s victory, and that the YSK decision on unstamped ballots appeared illegal.

“These complaints are to be taken very seriously and they are, in any case, of such an extent that they would turn around the outcome of the vote,” Alev Korun told ORF radio.

The European Commission, which unlike U.S. President Donald Trump has declined to congratulate Erdogan on Sunday’s vote, called on Turkey to launch a transparent investigation into the alleged irregularities.

“There will be no call to Erdogan from the Commission, certainly not a congratulatory call,” a Western official with knowledge of EU policy told Reuters. “Turkey is sliding towards a semi-authoritarian system under one-man rule”.

“CONSIDERABLE COMPLAINTS”

Election authorities have said preliminary results showed 51.4 percent of voters had backed the biggest overhaul of Turkish politics since the founding of the modern republic, a far narrower margin than Erdogan had been seeking.

Erdogan argues that concentration of power in the presidency is needed to prevent instability. Opponents accuse him of leading a drive toward one-man rule in Turkey, a NATO member that borders Iran, Iraq and Syria and whose stability is of vital importance to the United States and the European Union.

Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Yildirim said “rumors” of irregularities were a vain effort to cast doubt on the result.

“The people’s will has been reflected at the ballot box, and the debate is over,” he said. “Everyone should respect the outcome, especially the main opposition”.

The YSK said on its website on Sunday, as votes were still being cast, that it had received “considerable complaints” that voters had been given slips and envelopes without official stamps and that it would accept unstamped documents as long as they were not proven to be fraudulent.

The bar association, whose head Metin Feyzioglu is seen as a potential future leader of the opposition CHP, said it had also received phone calls from many provinces about unstamped ballots on Sunday and that its lawyers had advised that records of this should be closely kept once ballot boxes were opened.

But it said that had failed to happen, and that evidence of irregularities had therefore not been properly archived.

On its website, the YSK gave four examples of cases in previous decades where unstamped ballots had been accepted at individual ballot boxes. But those cases only affected several hundred votes and the decision was taken days after the vote and only once the possibility of fraud had been ruled out.

The YSK has also decided to annul elections in the past because of unstamped ballots. It canceled the results of local elections in two districts in southeastern Turkey in April 2014 and re-held them two months later.

And in Sunday’s referendum, the YSK’s overseas election branch had already rejected an appeal by a ruling AK Party official to have unstamped envelopes counted as valid.

YSK officials could not be reached for comment.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in Ankara, Daren Butler in Istanbul, Shadia Nasralla in Vienna, Robine Emmott and Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Anna Willard)

Turkey could put EU talks to a referendum next year

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during his meeting with mukhtars at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, October 26, 2016.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey could hold a referendum on whether to continue membership talks with the European Union next year, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday, and repeated his warning to Brussels that it needed to “make up its mind” on Turkish accession.

European Union foreign ministers were meeting on Monday to consider shelving membership talks with Turkey over what they see as its lurch away from democracy after a failed coup in July, although there is no consensus for such a move.

In a speech in Ankara broadcast live on television, Erdogan urged Turks to be patient until the end of the year and then said a vote could be held on EU membership.

“Let’s wait until the end of the year and then go to the people. Let’s go to the people since they will make the final call. Even Britain went to the people. Britain said ‘let’s exit’, and they left,” Erdogan said.

He lambasted European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who said this month the detention of opposition politicians and the extent of post-coup purges “call into question the basis for the sustainable relationship between the EU and Turkey”.

“What are you? Since when do you have the authority to decide for Turkey? How can you, who have not taken Turkey into the EU for 53 years, find the authority to make such a decision?” Erdogan said.

“This people makes its own decisions, cuts its own umbilical cord,” he said.

Erdogan also said he would approve reinstating the death penalty – a move that would likely end any hope of Turkish membership in the EU – if parliament passed a law on it, and said that too could be part of a referendum.

Turkey is expected to hold a national vote on constitutional changes next spring, including boosting the powers of Erdogan’s office to create a Turkish version of the presidential system in the United States or France.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Humeyra Pamuk and David Dolan)