Mayoral candidates from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the country’s southeastern province of Diyarbakır who received the majority of votes in the March 31 local elections have applied to the provincial election board for their election certificates, independent news site Diken reported on Tuesday.
Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) has yet to declare the official results of the March 31 local polls in Kurdish majority Diyarbakır, where the HDP candidate won with 62.9 percent support, according to unofficial results.
HDP Diyarbakır mayoral candidate Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı as well as four other HDP candidates who won the mayoral seat in the local municipalities of Bağlar, Sur, Yenişehir and Kayapınar submitted their request for the certificates which are an official recognition of their posts, Diken said.
“The granting of the certificates of election is being delayed despite absolutely crushing results, which demonstrate the will of the voters in our region,” Mızraklı said, in an apparent reference to Diyarbakır, the biggest city in Turkey’s southeast and a HDP stronghold.