French Mission at Turkish Election Detained to Impede Observation – French Party

PARIS (Sputnik) - Some members of the French delegation at Turkey's early presidential election held this weekend were briefly detained by the police as a way to prevent them from monitoring the vote, the French Communist Party (PCF), whose members were arrested, told Sputnik on Monday.

"We sent a delegation, just as observers. The delegation was arrested by the police forces to prevent them from observing the election … They were released after 5 p.m. [on Sunday]… They impeded the French parliamentarian and communist activists [from being] able to observe the way the polling took place," Gerald Briant, a coordinator for the PCF, said.

READ MORE: CHP Party Ready to Inform Int'l Bodies of Turkish Elections Violations

According to Briant, the PCF members were detained under the pretext that "they were either spies, or that they were sent there by the PKK [Kurdish Workers’ Party] or the HDP [People’s Democratic party]."

"Despite Erdogan’s fraudulent victory, the democrats of Turkey resist," the national secretary of the PCF, Pierre Laurent, said on Twitter.

On Sunday, early presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Turkey. Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 52.6 percent of the vote with 99.7 percent of ballots counted.

As for results of the parliamentary election, with 99.6 percent of the ballots counted, the People's Alliance, made up of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), won 53.65 percent of the vote.

The Nation Alliance, which includes the Turkish opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the Iyi Party (IYI), the Felicity Party (SP), and the Democrat Party (DP), has secured 33.96 percent of the vote.