An official from Turkey’s main opposition party on Tuesday showed journalists a photograph of a top figure from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) standing next to a police chief and an election official as votes were counted in Antalya during the country’s March 30 local elections, the latest in a series of alleged irregularities that have generated protests throughout the country.

Devrim Kök, the head of the CHP’s Antalya provincial office, shared the photograph with journalists at the Antalya courthouse, after both his party and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) filed official complaints regarding the controversial vote counting in Antalya.

“Is it ethical that there is a minister here? We can’t crack the secret of a minister who comes to the courthouse and stands over the votes during counting,” Kök said, adding that “the CHP has lost the election on the table after winning it in the ballot box.”

The controversy comes amid several others related to last weekend’s polling, with AKP opponents calling attention to everything from discarded ballots marked for opposition candidates to mysterious blackouts in opposition-heavy areas. Turkey’s blackouts had initially been blamed on a cat said to have wandered into local electrical infrastructure, but subsequent investigation suggested that the NATO country’s electricity infrastructure has probably been hardened beyond the reach of stray felines, and that the blackouts seemed to correlate with areas supplied by pro-government electricity firms.

Turkey has recently made a series of moves aimed at dampening criticism of the AKP government, with the most controversial being a series of internationally criticized bans on access to Twitter and Facebook instituted on the eve of the recent elections.

The country’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday lashed out at the European Union over such criticism, declaring that EU diplomats should consult with Ankara before criticizing Ankara.

[Photo: Haber Kaktus / YouTube]