Berlin scuppers Erdoğan’s efforts to boost Turkish diaspora votes
Berlin has rejected Turkey’s plan to double the number of polling stations for its 1.5mn voters in Germany, scuppering Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s efforts to boost diaspora votes in his knife-edge battle for re-election.
The German foreign ministry informed the Turkish embassy that it would approve three new voting locations but refuse 10 other proposed sites, four people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times. The notification came the day before overseas voting began on Thursday, after deliberation among several German authorities.
Security concerns were cited as the main reason for turning down Ankara’s request, according to two people familiar with the decision.
The decision risks reigniting tensions between Ankara and Berlin, and offering a fresh opportunity for President Erdoğan to attack Europe in the final few weeks of the hardest re-election campaign of his 20 years in power.
The large Turkish diaspora in Europe has played a significant role in recent elections since Erdoğan gave them the right to vote without returning to Turkey in 2014.
The worldwide overseas electorate of 3.4mn people makes up about 5 per cent of total voters. That segment is dominated by those in Germany, where 1.5mn people — about half of the total number of people of Turkish origin in the country — are Turkish citizens who can vote.
In the 2018 presidential elections, Erdoğan won with 65 per cent of the vote in Germany compared with 53 per cent overall.
Overseas turnout was much lower, with just 46 per cent of eligible voters in Germany using their vote, versus 84 per cent in Turkey. As a result, authorities in Ankara launched a drive to boost participation by increasing the number of polling stations abroad.
Supporters of the president’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) in Germany, who had actively campaigned to boost diaspora turnout as part of their strategy for helping Erdoğan get re-elected, lashed out at the decision.
Fatih Zingal, a spokesperson for the AKP-affiliated Union of International Democrats, said members of the Turkish diaspora would view it as an attempt to “sabotage” support for Erdoğan, who had previously outperformed among diaspora voters.
Zingal said: “In Germany, 65 per cent of votes [in the last election] went to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Any increase in turnout will boost his support. So people will say that Germany doesn’t want Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to win.”
A German official rejected that suggestion, telling the FT that Berlin had granted permission to increase the number of polling stations compared with the elections in 2017 and 2018, with approval granted to all proposed sites based in a diplomatic mission or honorary consulate. That will bring the number of voting locations across Germany from 13 to 16, but fewer than the 26 sites the Turkish election authority had previously announced would be available.
The official said the German government “attaches to the democratic election process. Never before have so many polling stations been approved in connection with Turkish elections.”
Kenan Polat, head of the opposition People’s Republican party (CHP) in Berlin, warned that the last-minute nature of the decision could cause confusion among voters. “I expect that turnout will now be lower,” he said, while cautioning that he did not know why the decision had been reached and whether the Turkish government had submitted its application for the polling stations correctly and on time.
Source: Financial Times
