After the highly charged and polarized period leading up to the March 30 municipal elections, the people of Turkey remained glued to their TV screens until the early hours of March 31, following nail-biting races in a number of cities, especially the one in Ankara, the capital. One would think that the day after the elections would be a day to rest and recover from the hassle and fatigue. It wasn't to be.
The elections were anything but flawless. A number of declared losers appealed for recounts following the extremely tight races in the cities of Ankara, Adana (the fourth largest city) and Antalya (the biggest Mediterranean city) and in some towns in Istanbul and Izmir provinces, Yalova province (close to Istanbul), as well as in the east and southeast. (Yalova was first announced as a win for the Justice and Development Party (AKP), but a recount gave the victory to the Republican People's Party (CHP) by a six-vote margin.) While votes were being counted, 45 of Turkey’s 81 provinces experienced power outages, casting doubts on the security of the elections. Taner Yildiz, the minister of energy and natural resources, then offended people's intelligence by claiming that a power outage in Ankara had been caused by a cat entering a transformer. Thus, he provided social media with endless opportunities for humor and sarcasm.
