According to Koskinen, the presence of election observers also encourages national actors to evaluate the course of the elections and the implementation of democracy.
Member of Parliament for the Häme constituency Johannes Koskinen (sd.) Has been observing the Turkish presidential election from Hämeenlinna.
Koskinen is one of the short-term election observers, most of whom are members of parliament from the OSCE countries. Finnish MPs were also present last weekend Eeva-Johanna Eloranta (sd.) and Jouni Ovaska (middle).
According to Koskinen, who will return home on Monday, the atmosphere in Turkey has been tense, but both the government and the opposition have tried to avoid escalating the situation.
Koskinen and other short-term election observers have been touring the polling stations to assess whether the operation is going according to the law.
Koskinen estimates that the elections will technically go well, but it has been difficult for President Erdoğan’s counter-candidates to gain visibility.
– There are media directly owned by the government, but also business groups that are close to the ruling parties, and in that way the publicity is not very equal. On the other hand, the opposition parties have relatively broad local freedom of action, he states.
Johannes Koskinen believes that the international pressure and assessment of the functioning of democracy has an impact on the course of the elections both directly and indirectly. According to him, the presence of foreign election observers encourages locals to evaluate and monitor the implementation of the elections.
– Free NGOs are encouraged by the fact that international organizations do the same work and also consider that national election observers and promoters of democracy have good operating conditions.
The decision of the Turkish presidential election is going to the second round.