Turkish party takes contested referendum to court

ANKARA — Turkey's main opposition party is filing a petition to the European Court of Human Rights challenging Turkey's April referendum that increases the powers of the president.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of pro-secular Republican People's Party, or CHP, signed the petition on Tuesday before he continued on his 425-kilometer (265-mile) "March for Justice" — a walk from Ankara to Istanbul protesting the jailing of a party lawmaker and other alleged injustices. The march, now on its 20th day, ends Friday.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "yes" camp won the referendum with a thin margin.

The CHP contested the outcome citing irregularities, including the electoral board's decision to count as valid unstamped ballots despite the law. CHP decided to apply to the Strasbourg, France based court following unsuccessful Turkish high court appeals.

"The YSK decision made the referendum illegitimate. We are applying to the European Court of Human Rights," Kilicdaroglu told reporters in the city of Izmit, around 100 km (62 miles) east of central Istanbul.

Kilicdaroglu, 68, set out for Istanbul from the capital Ankara on June 15 after fellow CHP deputy Enis Berberoglu was jailed for 25 years for spying, becoming the first MP from the party to be imprisoned in a government crackdown following a failed coup in July 2016.

April's referendum, held under a state of emergency, gave a narrow 51.4 percent approval for constitutional changes that sharply widened Erdogan's presidential authority.

Opposition parties have said the poll was deeply flawed, while European election observers said the decision of the High Electoral Board (YSK) to allow unstamped ballot papers to be counted had removed a main safeguard against voting fraud. — Agencies