Impartiality of the State The supervision of public resources and authority during elections by parties and candidates is one of the prerequisites of democratic elections. One of the most widely discussed issues during the June7th elections was the fact that the activities carried out by the President who, according to the Constitution, should be impartial, explicitly turned into campaigning for the ruling party. Various political parties have applied to the SBE regarding the impartiality of the President, however the SBE has rejected all of them. In addition to the President, the practices of ministries, governorships and other public agencies were challenged in terms of the impartiality of public institutions. Many news reports were covered in the media regarding the impartiality of public agencies. With regard to these news reports, the platform was notified of the right to information petitions filed with the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Transportation, the Governorships of Bingöl and Afyon and the Istanbul Provincial Office of the Mufti. 12 According to the answers given to the applications, in line with Article 114 of the Constitution, among the ministries assigned as an independent ministry, only the Ministry of Transportation, sent a circular to its affiliated agencies and staff to pay special attention to ‘impartiality’. Neither the Ministry of Interior nor the Ministry of Justice issued any such circulars.13 Similarly, another petition was filed to the Istanbul Office of the Mufti requesting information about a reported event where a political party campaign bus was provided electricity from a mosque. The Istanbul Office of the Mufti replied that the report was true yet that they had intervened and stopped the provision of electricity when they received the report.14 Another example regarding impartiality was the four separate warnings and one broadcasting ban issued by the SBE about the channels under the National Broadcasting Authority (TRT). All these sanctions were issued due to biased broadcasting.15 The Candidacy Process The Parliamentary Elections of June 7th was one in which here was relatively more diversity in terms of both precandidates and the candidates nominated by political parties. Just like in all elections, many women and disabled persons made applications to political parties to be nominated as a candidate. Different from the earlier elections, many citizens from different ethnic and religious backgrounds also applied as precandidates. In addition individuals with different gender identities also applied as precandidates. For the first time in the history of Turkey, a Roma individual, two Yezidi individuals and one Mhallami individual were shown as candidates by their political parties in constituencies where they can be elected and thus were able to enter the parliament as deputies. Similarly, after an interval of 54 years, three Armenian candidates were elected as deputies from three political parties and entered the parliament. 12 13 14 15 See, Annex I Petition filed under the Law on Right to Information See, Annex I Petition filed under the Law on Right to Information See, Annex I Petition filed under the Law on Right to Information See, AnnexII SBE Decisions regarding the media 13