A Flemish politician has drawn the ire of Türkiye’s AK Party for suggesting Turkish-Belgian voters’ dual citizenship should be revoked because most of them voted for incumbent Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Flemish Regional Government Minister of State for Equal Rights and Combating Poverty, Zuhal Demir, herself a former Turkish citizen, has said that "Erdogan is much more popular in the Flemish region than in Türkiye. He got 72 percent of the vote.''
''European Turks are doing some kind of electoral doping. The only way to stop the brainwashing of Turks in the Flemish region is to make it impossible to vote for Erdogan." she added.
Demir demanded "removing dual citizenship or reducing it to a symbolic form that does not recognise the right to vote."
Demir is a member of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), a Flemish nationalist and conservative party in Belgium. According to the Turkish press, she is the daughter of Turkish immigrants and was born in Belgium. She has spoken against dual citizenship in the past and had given up her Turkish citizenship in 2017.
Justice and Development (AK) Party spokesperson Omer Celik has tweeted a scathing response to Demir who “has targeted our overseas citizens. We strongly condemn this statement. It is grave that someone who holds a ministerial position in an EU country is using the language of European fascists.”
Celik went on to write “All of our citizens will soon give the answer to this distorted mentality once again at the ballot box. Our citizens, who are well aware of our President's struggle with this distorted mentality, will give this mentality the lesson it deserves by giving stronger support to our president.”
