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DE RUEHIT #0675/01 2071313
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 261313Z JUL 07
FM AMCONSUL ISTANBUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7332
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000675 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: SMALL PARTY ALLEGES RIGHTS VIOLATIONS BY 
SUPREME ELECTION BOARD 
 
REF: ANKARA 1477 
 
This is a joint ConGen Istanbul/Embassy Ankara Cable. 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  The minuscule Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) 
intends to file a complaint of "gross violations" of rights 
against Turkey's Supreme Election Board (SEB) with the 
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  The SEB's decisions 
are final and may not be appealed to any body inside Turkey, 
so LDP is taking its case to the ECHR.  Although the LDP 
obviously overreached in its pursuit of a stay of the July 22 
elections, its complaint is shared by outside observers, 
including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 
Europe (OSCE).  LDP Chairman Cem Toker spoke to Mission 
officers about its case, and more generally about what he 
sees as unfair election procedures, including funding, media 
coverage, and mandatory documentation.  He insisted that 
although his party has no hope of passing the 10% threshold 
required to join parliament, he will continue his advocacy 
for the protection of Turkish citizens, basic voting rights 
and freedoms.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U)  LDP,s complaint stems from election filing 
requirements that can invalidate all of a party's candidates 
in a province because one candidate's paperwork is improperly 
filed.  According to Toker, election regulations require 
parties contesting parliamentary seats in an electoral 
district to field one candidate for every seat to be awarded 
in the district.  For each candidate, much paperwork is 
required, including copies of national identification and 
diplomas and a letter from the state prosecutor.  If one 
candidate fails to provide all the paperwork (or it gets lost 
in the mail), their individual candidacy is declared invalid, 
and they are removed from the list.  The provincial list is 
then incomplete, and consequently, all candidates in the 
district's list -- in other words, the party as a whole -- 
are excluded from the ballot in that district.  LDP put 
forward 478 candidates (in 75 districts 
), only 15 of which were considered invalid.  Because of this 
regulation, one-quarter of their candidates (120) were 
subsequently excluded, leaving LDP with candidates in only 62 
districts.  Their entire slate for Istanbul's third district, 
for instance, was ruled invalid because of one candidate's 
duplicate registration in Istanbul and Canakkale due to 
confusion over the candidate's married and maiden names. 
 
¶3. (U) After the draft lists were submitted to the SEB 
(reftel), the SEB advised LDP (and all parties) of the gaps 
in documentation, which LDP scrambled to fill in the four-day 
window leading up to June 8.  After that deadline, LDP 
received a letter from SEB advising that "because some of the 
candidates did not provide their paperwork, LDP has been 
withdrawn from the following cities..."  However LDP claims 
it was never advised of which candidates' dossiers were 
incomplete.  (Note: LDP was notified of and had the 
opportunity to replace candidates with criminal records.) 
 
¶4. (SBU) Attorney and co-founder of the Liberal Thinking 
Association, Kazim Berzeg, has agreed to take the case to the 
ECHR.  Toker told Mission officers that he would be meeting 
with ECHR officials and that he intended to seek a stay of 
action on the election citing "the irreparable damage holding 
the election would cause, given this violation of rights of 
both the candidates and the voters." 
 
¶5. (U) In an article about LDP's situation (June 27), 
national columnist Mehmet Ali Birand called the SEB a 
dictatorship and agreed that Toker's claims look serious. 
Other outside observers have also objected to the power 
wielded by the SEB; an OSCE preliminary election Needs 
Assessment Mission Report (June 2007) states that "the 
absence of appeal from an administrative decision... 
remain(s) contrary to OSCE commitments." 
 
¶6. (U) LDP has announced its intention to take these 
complaints to the OSCE, UN, the National Democratic Institute 
(NDI), Carter Center, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the 
Council of Europe (PACE).  LDP also has a lawsuit pending in 
Ankara concerning Treasury assistance to political parties, 
alleging that it violates the equity clause in the 
Constitution. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Toker complained that his party faced many barriers 
in the parliamentary election.  Unlike the Justice and 
Development Party (AKP), the Republican People's Party (CHP), 
the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), the Genc (Youth) Party 
(GP), and the True Path Party (DYP) (the predecessor to the 
Democrat Party), which were each given a percentage of 216.4 
 
ISTANBUL 00000675  002 OF 002 
 
 
million YTL from the Treasury for the election year, based on 
the parties' relative performances in the 2002 elections, the 
LDP did not receive financial support.  According to Toker's 
calculations, the equivalent of 30 YTL for each voter was 
distributed among the leading parties. Similarly, he 
complained that although media laws say that there should be 
fair time and equal coverage for all parties, this policy is 
largely ignored.  Like the other small parties, Toker was 
given two 10-minute television slots to make the case for his 
party in the election period, as opposed to the 40 minutes 
given to AKP chairman Tayyip Erdogan. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Toker defended his party's values and said that 
although he has been teased for 13 years because people are 
hungry while he talks about human rights, he believes that 
history shows that people "first get their rights and 
freedoms and then they prosper." 
 
¶9. (SBU) Despite LDP,s status as a very small party, Toker 
claimed the DYP offered a coalition with LDP for the 2002 
election; Toker refused.  Toker portrayed this as a "what 
ifs" of history.  DYP got 9.76% of the vote.  Had a coalition 
pushed them over the threshold, they might have gotten 65-70 
deputies and "changed the course of history."  In the fall of 
2006, he campaigned to convince other small parties to form a 
coalition irrespective of politics.  He proposed dividing an 
estimated 60 seats based on the percentage of votes each 
party received.  The formula would have favored the two 
largest vote-getters, the Motherland Party (ANAP) and the 
Democratic Left Party (DSP).  Both proved reluctant to 
compromise.  The DSP is in parliament through its coalition 
with the CHP, but Toker noted that the rest of the small 
parties are "out of the picture." 
OUDKIRK