Alkharyan Constitutional Referendum - 26th & 27th of December, 2020
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Background
On 26th of December, Alkharyan citizens of voting age (63% of the population, or 21,5 million) will vote on a referendum which proposes presidential elections by public vote.
In the current system, the president is chosen by Kurultay, the national parliament of Alkharya. Three to seven Kurultay members declare candidacy, and the one with the most votes from other Kurultay members wins the presidency. If the referendum passes, the presidency will be chosen by a public vote, while the candidates will still be chosen from Kurultay. The votes will be announced on the evening of 27th of December.For this referendum, Kaanpaşa Region and Kaanpaşa Federal Capital Region are counted as one region, as the referendum was approved by Kurultay before the partition.
News articles
- Constitutional referendum waiting approval to be held on 26th of December, presidential elections are on the table - ART, November 12th, 2020.
- President Elçi approves the constitutional referendum - ART, November 17th, 2020.
- A Little Talk With Aylin Gökçen - Councillor Aylin Gökçen gives her opinions about the referendum, ONE Radyo, December 9th, 2020.
What to expect
- The turnout is expected to be around 60% or 12,9 million of eligible voters.
- Regions of Alfur and Kaanpaşa are expected to have the highest turnouts in the referendum.
- It is predicted that Northern Alkharya will heavily oppose the proposal, especially the region of Alfur, while it is predicted for Southern Alkharya to show massive support.
- The Twin Islands and Levent will also show support, many polls predict.
- Some experts fear that this referendum, regardless of its success, might be "a spark for a greater future conflict"
Coverage
All media in Alkharya (with few exceptions) are expected to broadcast the results. This thread will focus on the coverage of ART (Alkharya Radio and Television), the public broadcaster of Alkharya.
Results
Region Name Voter turnout % YES % NO Açelya 422,730 (61%) 213,056 (50.4%) 209,674 (49.6%) Alfur 4,032,000 (84%) 838,656 (20.8%) 3,193,344 (79.2%) Atlıkarınca 978,200 (73%) 227,921 (23.3%) 750,279 (76.7%) Barbaros 2,827,200 (76%) 1,967,731 (69.6%) 859,469 (30.4%) Etikel 1,140,800 (82%) 832,784 (73%) 308,016 (27%) Geyikli 633,750 (75%) 317,509 (50.1%) 316,241 (49.9%) İkiz Adalar 113,750 (50%) 92,138 (81%) 21,612 (19%) İskender 526,680 (76%) 324,962 (61.7%) 201,718 (38.3%) Kaanpaşa & Kaanpaşa Federal Capital Region 4,554,550 (77%) 3,648,195 (80.1%) 906,355 (19.9%) Levent 204,228 (62%) 101,706 (49.8%) 102,522 (50.2%) Leylekhan 726,880 (77%) 250,774 (34.5%) 476,106 (65.5%) Yeditepe 628,940 (82%) 442,774 (70.4%) 154,719 (24.6%) -
Live coverage - ART - December 26th, 2020 - 11:00
Ladies, gentlemen and others, I am currently in the city of Poyraz and voting for the referendum have begun this morning and we can see a line forming behind me in the voting booth. Despite the snow, it seems like there's still a bigger turnout than many have predicted. We are only a couple hours in the voting schedule, which will end exactly today, at midnight. Once again, this referendum will decide whether or not Alkharya will have public presidential elections. This has been the most heated subject in Alkharyan politics in the last months, with the Northerners and Southerners arguing with each other relentlessly. Today is the voting day, and I have a long day to cover. Let's see how all this rounds up.
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Live coverage - ONE - December 26th, 2020 - 16:00
Is this thing on..? Can you hear me? Okay. Welcome back, I am currently in the city of Alderik and, as you can see, the line for voting passes through roads. Some say they have been waiting to cast their vote for hours, and not many are giving up to leave. Behind me is a woman, hello!
Hello!
Just a quick question: how long have you been waiting here to vote?
Eh, around like an hour.
How long are you willing to wait here?
Well, I got a day off from work for this so...
That's the law.
Yeah, kinda.
Okay, thank you. We are now seven hours into the voting and there are millions voting, all at the same time. The voting will end exactly at midnight and will be counted tomorrow. We cannot wait. Back to you, studio.
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Live coverage - ART - December 26th, 2020 - 23:50
We are currently reaching the end of the voting schedule. Despite the seemingly long voting lines of before, there isn't that many people left here in the city of Barbaros. There is exactly... ten minutes remaining until polls close and then the counting will start tomorrow. Many citizens want another ways of voting in elections like these, such as mail-in or online voting like other countries do. It appears that some of the voting lines just couldn't keep up with the long lines and many just could not manage to vote, which I believe is harmful to Alkharyan democracy. Just, uh, a couple minutes in, President Tülay Elçi tweeted, saying that they will definitely find other ways to vote in referendums and elections to increase voter turnout. This is probably going to be the last time I'll appear, so... Regardless of the results, Alkharya should remain undivided. Unity is key to the strength of the Alkharyans. Okay, back to the studio it is, then.
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Live coverage - ART - December 27th, 2020 - 11:50
Good morning Alkharyans. If you haven't caught up on yet, the voting procedure finished 12 hours ago, and reports say that the count has started around three hours ago. The poll workers are working very hard to count millions of votes and I, as a reporter, wish them the best of luck. President Tülay Elçi has also tweeted luck wishes to poll workers, saying they are the hardest workers of this time, carrying our democracy. The first votes will be announced at 21:00 and the counting is expected to continue until January 1. It is said that the voter turnout was unexpectedly high. This referendum seems like it's going to be a bloodbath. I wish the best for Alkharya, and back to the studio.
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Live coverage - ART - December 27th, 2020 - 21:00
The first votes should be displayed... right about now. Do we have them? Oh? Oh! Okay. Uh... The first region we have is Alfur, which, as expected, voted overwhelmingly against the proposal with over 70% voting against presidential elections, that's an insane number, not much unanimous races happen in Alkharyan elections. After that... it's Atlıkarınca, we see a very similar situation here, as we saw in Alfur, the "NO" vote dominates this region. The referendum was protested across many places in Northern Alkharya and it clearly shows. Leylekhan, also in a similar situation though less, Geyikli though, Geyikli is very close. There's currently a ten thousand vote difference... and YES is actually leading. Another close race is on Açelya, the YES vote is also leading there by a couple thousand and in Levent, YES is also leading, uh, would like to tell viewers to keep in mind that only 50% of the votes are counted right now, and the count will stop at midnight, continuing at 8 AM. Now, Etikel and Barbaros are quite similar as they have an overwhelming YES vote, so does Kaanpaşa, Yeditepe and the Twin Islands, this seems like a clear approval, but we have to wait, probably until tomorrow for full results.
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Live coverage - ART - December 28th, 2020 - 16:00
In a span of four hours, three more regions finished their counting: Yeditepe, Leylekhan and Atlıkarınca. In Yeditepe, YES leads with 70.4%, In Atlıkarınca and Leylekhan NO leads by 76.7% and 65.5% respectively. It is said that the votes will probably be finished around the 30th.
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Live coverage - ART - December 28th, 2020 - 18:00
So, we got news from Açelya that their counting has been finished and YES has barely won by 50.4%. We can see the protestors outside one of the voting booths right now as they chant for a recount, It is really uh, conflicted right now. Another close race is Geyikli, again, the difference is by the thousands. We are going to have a long, long night. And uh, I just got the notification that İskender has also finished their counts, as 61.7% of them voted YES. Currently, YES is leading by quite a large margin and... there doesn't seem to be any protests there, interestingly...
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Live coverage - ART - December 28th, 2020 - 19:30
Oh, okay, Etikel just came in. Yeah, okay, 73% of YES vote. As expected. Not much is happening there, but we're now seeing celebrations in confirmed regions like in the Twins, it doesn't look like the city of İskender won't sleep tonight. Alright.
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Live coverage - ART - December 28th, 2020 - 20:00
Levent has actually finished their voting, finally, not sure what took them so long to count two hundred thousand votes. They aren't as fast as they used to be. Remember when they invaded almost all of Açelya? Yeah... So, NO won there by a short margin of 816 votes, holy cow! That is quite the close race, ladies and gentlemen.
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Live coverage - ART - December 28th, 2020 - 21:40
So... Geyikli has finally announced their votes with 50.1% voting YES, again, such a close race there just finished like that, the difference is around 1200 votes, and the race in Alfur, Barbaros and Kaanpaşa continues. But we can clearly see that, no matter what, YES is going to win. Like, there is no reason to. People out in the streets either celebrating or protesting the results, it has apparently gotten heated in Yeditepe, as we can see. This is going to be one bloody night. We have a reporter situated there and he will talk about the protests that just started in the city of Yenitepe.
Thank you, studio, as we can see, the people have started gathering in the streets, there is no police yet but they will probably come very, very soon, as we can see, on one side of the Metehan Square we have the naysayers protesting the count and on the other, we have the yeasayers which are currently on a convoy, I hear quite a lot of shouting and slogans but the two groups are quite far away from each other but they are getting closer, there's a lot of noise right now and it feels like Alkharyans will not sleep for tonight. Back to you, studio.
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Live coverage - ART - December 28th, 2020 - 22:10
We have some breaking news, our dear citizens, the streets of Alkharya are currently filled with people, as they took it to the streets to show their reaction to the referendum results. We can see every region right now, and some cities have it relatively easy, while others like Alfur or Leylekhan, not as much. According to locals, the police has shown up already in some of these protests to calm things down and while all that's happening, Alfur has confirmed their final results, a stronghold of both Northern Alkharya and the movement against this referendum, even in Kurultay, all the members from Alfur voted against this referendum. 79.2% have voted NO, surely a record number. We have also gathered information that the Governor of Geyikli has declared a state of emergency just now and a curfew till the morning of the 29th is in effect. This is going to be a wild night.
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Live coverage - ART - December 29th, 2020 - 01:10 - from Kaanpaşa, FCR
*And, just right after the New Years, all the counts are finished. The results were already ratified way before but, Barbaros and Kaanpaşa have finally finished their counts and they both say YES, making the final vote 55.1% YES to 44.9% NO. President Tülay Elçi will give a speech about the referendum very shortly, as we speak. This referendum decided whether or not Alkharya would have presidential elections and the people said yes to them. Currently, there's a big crowd around Elçi's house and we are expecting her to come outside very shortly. The press is waiting at her door and- Oh! She just came! Okay. Switch the camera, yeah?
(The point of view gets switched to another camera that's closer to the President. After coming out of her house, a bunch of microphones from the media are shoved into her face as the nation waits for her words.)
Thank you. Dear Alkharyans, it's been an honour to see a democratic referendum take place here once again. The fact that we have established democracy with such longevity is enough to make our ancestors proud. I have watched the results progress alongside with you. I have no doubt that the election was done free and fair, as usual. I would like to honour those who worked to make this referendum come true. I would also like to honour those who have voted and made their voices heard. Your decision is the government's command. It is my command to make your decision become reality. It is truly amazing to see Alkharyans taking more control of our democracy. In 2022, The first presidential elections will be held, and I will be one of the candidates. Until then, long live democracy! Long live unity! Long live Alkharya!