Turkish Elections: Erdogan’s Government Arrested and Expelled International Election Observers
Deconstructed
The Intercept
4.8 • 4.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 May 2023
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Sunday, as the first round of Turkish elections were underway, the government expelled a team of international election observers. The delegation, including members of Spain’s parliament, was invited by a leading Kurdish party to observe the elections. This week on Deconstructed, Ryan Grim is joined by Ismael Cortés, one of the election observers who was expelled. Cortés is a member of the left-wing Podemos party in Spain and a representative in Spain’s Congress of Deputies. Cortés tells how, as he visited voting sites in southern Turkey, he and his team were arrested by Turkish officials and later expelled from the country. He emphasizes that even though he and the team were mistreated by Turkish officials, it is nothing compared to the repression Kurdish people face.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Deconstructed, I'm Ryan Grimm and today we're checking back in on the first |
| 0:08.5 | round of the Turkish elections which saw a Thai-up-airdogan outperform polls and force |
| 0:12.8 | a runoff which will take place on May 28th. |
| 0:15.6 | I'm joined today by Ismail Cortez, a member of the left-leaning Podemos party in the Spanish |
| 0:20.4 | Congress of deputies who was on hand during the election in eastern Turkey, the Kurdish |
| 0:24.1 | region, at the invitation of the opposition party. |
| 0:27.1 | And things went about as poorly as you could possibly imagine for Cortez and his international |
| 0:31.7 | team of elected officials and civil society representatives. |
| 0:35.4 | Now we reached out to the Turkish government to get their response to what was a truly |
| 0:38.4 | shocking move on their part, but we have yet to hear back if we do, we'll append their |
| 0:42.5 | response. |
| 0:43.5 | Ismail was slightly delayed joining us today because he was finishing a debate on the |
| 0:47.7 | floor of Congress, so I have to ask Ismail what were you debating and did you win? |
| 0:52.2 | Yes, yes, we were debating the enlargement of the permission for part-end after maternity. |
| 1:01.8 | And how's that going? |
| 1:02.8 | Are they going to get it? |
| 1:04.0 | Yes. |
| 1:05.0 | Well, wonderful. |
| 1:06.0 | Congratulations. |
| 1:07.0 | It's always frustrating sometimes when we in America hear about the state of European |
| 1:12.1 | politics compared to what we're able to get right now, the big debate in Washington |
| 1:16.0 | is whether or not they're going to attach stricter work requirements to welfare benefits. |
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