Dozens of police officers intervened yesterday, Sunday, night to end “important clash” to voting center which has been installed in Amsterdam for Turkish-Dutch voters who can vote in advance for Turkey’s highly divisive May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Dutch media broadcast images today showing scores of police officers, some wearing riot gear or accompanied by dogs, trying to separate the two rival sides.

The fight broke out last night shortly before the polling station set up at the RAI conference center was to close after an altercation between representatives of opposing sides, according to public broadcaster NOS.

Asked by AFP, police said an investigation had been launched, without commenting further at this time.

According to NOS, citing an official, who asked not to be named, it was a “significant incident”. According to an eyewitness, “there was shouting, panic and chaos”. The situation calmed down a few hours later.

The authorities did not specify between which sides the altercation broke out.

The Turkish-Dutch community in the Netherlands has around 400,000 members, most of them descendants of workers who immigrated to Europe in the 1960/70s.

69-year-old Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces on May 14 the most uncertain election since he came to power, as he faces a united opposition front for the first time in twenty years amid a crisis in the country.

Three candidates are running against Erdogan for the presidency, but one is seen as his real challenger: 74-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of a coalition of six opposition parties spanning the nationalist right to the democratic left, dominated by the Republican People’s Party (CHP). , founded by the father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.