Supreme Election Board

The referendum is over and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan secured a narrow win for the "Yes" campaign, heralding a new era for the entire country. 

Hundreds of citizens on April 18 lined up in front of the headquarters of the Supreme Election Board (YSK) in Ankara to submit individual applications for the annulment of the April 16 referendum on shifting to an executive presidential system, saying the counting of unstamped ballot papers and envelopes openly violated the law.

Turkey's main opposition party and scores of citizens have appealed to the election watchdog for the annulment of a critical referendum that resulted in a narrow win for the government, arguing that unsealed ballot papers and envelopes were counted in open violation of the law.   

At least 49 people have been detained after protesting against the April 16 referendum results in rallies across Turkey. 

A last-minute decision by Turkey's electoral board to allow unstamped ballots in the April 16 constitutional referendum was "clearly against the law," preventing proper records being kept and potentially impacting the result, the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) has stated.

International election observers' criticism that the April 16 referendum on shifting Turkey to an executive presidential system fell below international standards has drawn an angry reaction from Ankara, which has slammed "biased and prejudiced approaches" to the results.

A relative of mine was an observer of a vote count at an Istanbul ballot box for the April 16 referendum on whether to shift Turkey from a parliamentary system to an executive presidential one. As she later told me, the count resulted in 275 "No" and 84 "Yes" votes. 

Turkey's main opposition party has vowed to take widespread irregularities during the April 16 referendum to the Constitutional Court and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), repeating its accusations against the election watchdog and calling on the Supreme Election Board (YSK) to annul the referendum results.

The head of the Eurasia Opinion Research Center (AKAM), Kemal Özkiraz, has announced that he will close his survey company following its failure to accurately predict the April 16 constitutional referendum results.

Before the vote, Özkiraz had said he would close the company if the "yes" side won, adding that his surveys indicated the "no" side would win 53 percent of the vote.

President Tayyip Erdoğan announced his narrow win for the constitutional shift from a parliamentary to an executive system as a result of the April 16 referendum, representing a radical change in Turkey's administrative regime.