Etiket arşivi: Turkey elections

Fighting for Survival?

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May 22, 2019

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (JDP) principal theme in the recent municipal election campaign was “the fight for Turkey’s survival”. The party and its supporters in the media claimed that Turkey was under the siege of external powers which were determined to block Turkey’s path to becoming a global player through an array of conspiracies. Who those powers are, was never spelled out. Nonetheless, Turkish government’s disappointment with Western reaction to the Gülenist coup attempt of July 15, 2016, continuing frustration with the support extended to the PYD/YPG and the s400s/s35 conundrum offer some clues and these only point toward the US and the EU, in other words, Turkey’s traditional Western allies. Okumaya devam et →

The Last Exit

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May 9, 2019

That Turkey has a strategic location is an axiom of our foreign policy. Although this is generally presented as an asset, it has always been a double-edged sword since we border on conflict areas, prominently among them the Middle East. In the past, we believed that non-involvement in regional problems particularly inter-Arab feuds, doing our best to control damage and to promote stability served our interests.

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had severe consequences for Turkey’s security, trade and economic relations with the region. Later, the US invasion of Iraq, the Arab spring, the Syrian conflict and the rise of the Islamic state threw our immediate vicinity into turmoil. Okumaya devam et →

Counting and Recounting …

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April 7, 2019

On March 31 Turkey had municipal elections. The result was a yellow card for the government. However, the ruling Justice and Development Party (JDP) immediately asked for recounts in Ankara and İstanbul where, according to initial figures, they lost the mayoralties after more than two decades. Is asking for recounts within the law? Yes, it is. But then government started saying that elected mayors who don’t command the majority in municipal councils, İstanbul being a case in point, would have a hard time governing. Thus, what should be a technical process has now turned into a political controversy whereby the government challenges more than the ballot box and that is pushing it too far. Turkey desperately needs to put this episode behind and turn to its heavily-loaded agenda. Okumaya devam et →

Turkey’s Municipal Elections: A Yellow Card for the Government

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Co-authored with Yusuf Buluc (*)

April 1, 2019

The significance of an election in a democratically governed country is determined by the context and the framework in which it is held, as well the political backdrop. If these parameters were to be applied to the municipal elections held yesterday in Turkey, in effect to determine choices for local administrations, the exercise takes on deeper and critical political character. Given where we are in our journey of modern and republican statehood close to a century, this election, as confirmed by the intensity with which the political parties have conducted their respective campaigns, brought us to a juncture with a sign boldly printed as “last exit for democracy”. Okumaya devam et →