Turkey’s state broadcaster TRT has refrained from broadcasting the campaign advertisement of the country’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), for the June 7 legislative elections.
The CHP said on Saturday that the state television had informed the party of a ban on its advertisement and has said the ban was enforced because the ad directly targeted the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Denouncing the move, the CHP’s deputy leader, Bulent Tezcan, said in a statement that TRT “created a new scandal” by deciding not to broadcast the advertisement.
The ad, which contained the slogan “We applaud as a nation,” encouraged the voters to take part in the CHP’s first mass election rally on Saturday.
“The main purpose of state-funded television in all democratic countries is fairness of broadcasting,” Tezcan further said, noting, “TRT’s direction is committing the crime of abuse of public office.”
The opposition party has vowed to launch legal proceedings over the ban.
The CHP has long accused TRT of being biased toward President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP, which itself is blamed for monopolizing air time on state and pro-government private television channels.
The CHP’s leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, was ordered to pay damages after an Ankara court on Thursday convicted him of insulting Erdogan in a 2013 speech.
While the AKP is broadly expected to emerge the winner in the upcoming elections, it is seeking to gain a constitutional majority in order to change a basic law to create a presidential system in Turkey.
The CHP’s election campaign was started on Saturday with a mass rally, which drew thousands of participants in the Kartal district on the Asian side of the city of Istanbul.
