Turkey's top election body deadlocked over election of new members

Less than four months before Turkey's presidential and parliamentary elections, a key Turkish electoral council reached an impasse Tuesday after conservative and nationalist factions failed to agree on the appointment of new members.

After 14 rounds of voting, Turkey's Court of Cassation still failed to renew two members of the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK), a key body that will oversee the elections, which President Tayyip Erdogan has said will take place on May 14, Deutsche Welle Turkish reported.

The reason for the deadlock, DW said, is that conservative and nationalist members could not agree on new names.

Two different factions of the conservative groups supported two different candidates, and the same happened with the nationalist groups.

If the election of all members of the supreme electoral body does not take place, the current members will continue in office and the newly elected members will not be able to take office. In this case, the current chairman and members will continue their mandate during the elections.