site.btaTension, Resentment and Rows in Voting Sections in Turkey

Tension, Resentment and Rows in Voting Sections in Turkey

Istanbul, March 26 (BTA exclusive by Nahide Deniz) - Bulgarian expatriates in Istanbul are turning out in large numbers to vote in the snap elections to the Bulgarian Parliament. Turnout was already high in the early hours. Only seven voting sections have been set up in Istanbul, although half of the 19,000 applications for voting in Turkey were filed in this mega-city.

At the start of Election Day, more than 100 people were waiting outside the only voting section in Istanbul's Avcilar district, popularly known as Little Bulgaria. Later on, a long queue of waiting voters wound through the yard. People complained that one section is far from enough in Avcilar. Just 300 voters managed to cast their ballots there by 10 a.m.

More than 12,000 people voted in the provinces of Bursa, Yalova, Kocaeli and Istanbul by 5 p.m., the Bulgarian Consulate General in Istanbul said. Voter turnout was highest in Istanbul and Bursa.

Olcay Ozgon, chairman of an immigrant society, said queues were due to the smaller number of voting sections, the requirement that voters fill out in Bulgarian statements that they will not vote elsewhere, which must be done in the presence of a member of the section commission, and recent blockades at the border with Turkey to stop election tourism.

Mahmure K., a native of the southern Bulgarian town of Kurdjali, said: "This is torture, not an election. We have been waiting in line for more than an hour now, this is so annoying. Look at us crammed in this corridor. How can a single voting section be enough for so many people? We think this has been done on purpose, in order to prevent us from voting."

Nayil B., originally from Razgrad, Northeastern Bulgaria, said: "I waited more than an hour. It was very exhausting and irritating, but I did vote because I think this is important for Bulgaria."

Coordinator Mehmet Ozgur said that some voters from Avcilar may be transported to the voting section in the Bulgarian Consulate General in Istanbul or to the city's Ikitelli district, where the voters are not so many