JINHA

NEWS CENTER – With just two days to go until Turkey's June 7th election, women across the country say they are ready to guard their votes by serving as elections observers at the polls.

"As women, we internalized the importance of this election ourselves," said Semra Akgün, a local representative from the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) in the Dicle district of Diyarbakır province. She explains that the strong involvement of women in the elections campaign means everyday women are determined to protect their votes. Her party has divided their district into four parts and assigned a woman volunteer to oversee elections observation in each one.

In the eastern province of Van, 112 lawyers of the Mesopotamia Lawyers' Association (MHD) will be among those on duty on Sunday to guard against election fraud. MHD co-chair for Van, Behiye Şedal, says that across the region, lawyers will be observing the polls with the help of an Android app that the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has designed for observing the election. The app will help elections observers tally the vote counts at the polls and compare them with the official vote counts issued by the Supreme Electoral Committee.

Lawyer Kezban Yılmaz says a major problem looms over Election Day: the Supreme Electoral Committee is under the thumb of the AKP government. Months before the polls opened, the Supreme Elections Committee had already allowed for a number of abuses of voters' rights. Thousands of women staying in women's shelters in the country remain unable to use their fundamental constitutional right to vote safely. The Supreme Elections Committee has refused women's groups calls to find a way for these women to vote.

The radical educators' union Eğitim Sen says they will be out in force on June 7, whatever the state does. Eğitim Sen Diyarbakır branch co-chair Dilek Atsan explained that the Supreme Electoral Committee particularly assigned union members from unions close to the state to be official elections observers in some areas. Eğitim Sen warned that the chance of elections fraud is high in these areas and will be sending trained volunteer observers to the polls.

"We’re in a period where things have turned very negative and a single vote could determine the fate of Turkey and the Middle East," said Dilek.

(mg/gc/be/fk/cm)