‘All cats caught,’ Turkish official reassures public over Election Day blackouts

ISTANBUL

This stray cat in the western Turkish province of İzmir has recently made it a habit to steal from pet shops' open-air cat food stands, Doğan News Agency recently reported, but the animal should not be confused with the anonymous culprit from the March 30, 2014, election day blackout.

A top electoral official in Turkey has reassured the public that the controversial blackouts during the local elections last year would not be repeated in the upcoming parliamentary elections, as “all cats have been caught.”

After the March 30, 2014, local elections last year, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız created controversy by saying a cat entered a power distribution unit in Ankara during the crucial vote-counting process at night, causing a blackout.

A year after the elections, almost all Turkish provinces suffered a massive power cut on March 31. Turkish authorities, alarmed by the crisis, have decided to take all measures to prevent power distribution cuts during the June 7 general elections.

The State Supply Office recently opened a tender to buy generators for voting centers, but this was apparently not the only measure taken by Turkish officials.

“We caught all the cats. No more cats left,” Supreme Election Board (YSK) head Sadi Güven jokingly said at Okan University in Istanbul on April 14 when a student asked him about last year’s incident, according to Cihan news agency.

“If there is a generator, then there won’t be a problem. We are trying to do this job in a healthy way, leaving no question marks in the public’s mind, by putting generators in all districts,” he added.