​Istanbul race, S-400 quarrel to go into extra innings

TURKEY - In Brief 09 Apr 2019 by Atilla Yesilada

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A legal arm-wrestling between AKP and CHP continues unabated in Istanbul, as – so far—CHP getting the better of the deal.Turkey’s supreme election body High Election Council (HEC) appears to be adopting a middle-of-the road approach to opposing briefs by parties and demands for recounts, but ever guiding AKP into a narrower path of recourse.Nevertheless, with MHP leader Bahceli suggesting a repeat election in 60 days might be the best way “to soothe the conscience of the people”, odds are AKP will get to win the election, but I must emphasize once again that my margin of error is unusually high in this prediction. Erdogan tried to put a stop to the S-400 controversy, proclaiming in his Moscow visit that the deal is done and there is no way to go back on it.However, a bi-partisan letter by four Congressional leaders to NYT reinforces my view that US remains determined to punish Turkey if it chooses Russia over NATO. I don’t want to clutter the Market Brief with a blow-by-blow account of AKP’s appeals. Here is a summary.So far, none of the recounts revealed material errors to justify suspicion of organized fraud, while the difference between CHP-AKP narrowed to 14K from the initial announcement of 29K. I doubt this narrowing of the gap is the motivation behind AKP’s determined push to have elections annulled, because the rhetoric being transmitted fromthe party focuses on wide-spread election fraud. High Election Council whittled down AKP’s appeals to selective cases, striking wholesale demands such as the entire vote being recounted.Yet, these appeals continue as I write, the latest being a very seldom used clause of the Electoral Act, allowing the plaintiff to contest ...