SULTANS GOTTA SULTANATE: Turkey tells Council of Europe to mind its own business on elections.

Turkey has told a European rights body “to mind its own business” after it voiced concern on Tuesday over the freedom and fairness of Turkish snap elections and recommended they be postponed.

President Tayyip Erdogan announced the June 24 parliamentary and presidential elections last week, saying Turkey needed to switch quickly to a new executive presidency system that was narrowly approved in a referendum last year.

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Monitoring Committee said the legitimacy of the elections was at stake after Turkey extended a state of emergency imposed following a failed military coup in mid-2016 and introduced a new electoral system last month.

The committee also expressed concern about what it said would be the possible presence of police forces in polling stations which “could have a deterrent effect on voters”.

The Council might also be worried that Erdogan plans to steal the election result on the first try, rather than following the European tradition of holding as many elections as necessary to produce the desired result.