Leading political parties to receive election results from Cihan

In addition to dozens of online news portals, national and local newspapers and TV channels across the country, leading political parties have also announced they will follow the Nov. 1 election results from the Cihan news agency, Turkey's largest privately owned news agency, known for its success in providing accurate and quick results in previous elections.

Among the political parties that will follow the election results from Cihan are the Republican People's Party (CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the Grand Unity Party (BBP) and the Democratic Left Party (DSP).

MHP Deputy Chairman Semih Yalçın said his party has established a monitoring station at its Ankara headquarters and Cihan's results will be shared with the public simultaneously.

“In response to the biased broadcasts of [the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation] TRT and the [state-run] Anadolu news agency, we will use Cihan's results. Moreover, those results will be projected on the giant screens we have set up in front of our headquarters,” Yalçın told the Cihan news agency.

CHP İzmir deputy Erdal Aksünger said the role the Cihan news agency will play on the night of the election is “valuable and crucial.”

“We have previously seen how the Anadolu news agency tried to manipulate election results in the past. However, Cihan has always played an important role as it accurately announces a significant portion of the results after the election news blackout ends,” Aksünger stated.

Cihan will provide up-to-date results of the election with graphics and pictures on its website on election day. Moreover, the news agency will cover news stories about the election with videos and photographs.

BBP Deputy Chairman Remzi Çayır also said his party has signed an official agreement with Cihan and will therefore use the election results announced by the news agency.

“Throughout election night, Cihan will directly provide us with the correct results across Turkey. Unfortunately, Anadolu has turned into a tool of the AK Party government and is therefore not reliable. And so we will stick to Cihan, which we feel releases the most accurate results during every election,” Çayır stated.

During the June 7 election, Cihan, a sister agency of the Zaman Media Group, maintained its reputation as the fastest and most reliable source of election results as it managed to announce around 75 percent of the results by 7:45 p.m. Many national television stations, including Fox Turkey, Bugün TV, Kanal D and Samanyolu TV, and many newspapers, political parties, radio stations and websites used Cihan to obtain the June 7 results.

Cihan announced the results of the 2002, 2004 and 2007 elections, as well as the 2010 referendum with 99 percent accuracy five hours after the completion of voting. Once the election news blackout ended, it announced the results for 40 percent of the voting stations, though its new target is 50 percent.

The agency plans to follow up its excellent performance covering previous elections and referendums in the Nov. 1 election as well. The agency's goal is to announce a significant portion of the results after the election news blackout ends; to this end, it has hired thousands of people to man polling stations.

Cihan was established in 1992 and started providing news and photos for national and international media outlets worldwide in January 1994. After two years, it also began supplying visual material for its clients. Since then, it has become the leading Turkish news agency, with a huge network within its reach. In the 2002 FIFA World Cup, co-hosted by Japan and South Korea, Cihan was the only Turkish company distributing news from the Far East.

Published on Today's Zaman, 30 October 2015, Friday