Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Board (YSK) has ruled that district mayors elected on 31 March who had previously been stripped of office by Statutory Decree (KHK) will not be allowed to take up office.

It appears that the second placed candidates will be awarded the mayor’s seat instead.

The decision will affect four candidates from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). According to a report published on Wednesday 48 out of 70 HDP candidates who won on March 31 have still not received their official election certification.

According to the YSK’s ruling, the HDP’s candidates for the Bağlar district in the south eastern city of Diyarbakır, and Tuşba, Çaldıran and Edremit districts in Van in eastern Turkey will not receive their certification.

In Edremit, Tuşba and Çaldıran the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s candidates were runners-up and will be awarded the mayor’s positions.The AKP candidate was also the runner up in Bağlar, where the HDP won 70 percent of votes to the AKP’s 25.4 percent.

The candidates who are now being denied their victories by the YSK were approved to run in the elections by the same institution early in March.

The HDP’s candidate for Bağlar, Zeyyat Ceylan, was like thousands of other Turks dismissed from his teaching position by Statutory Decree during a two-year state of emergency implemented after the July 2016 coup attempt.