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15 MPs leave CHP to join IYI Party & run in Turkish polls

A place to talk about domestic politics in Middle East (Iran, Iraq , Turkey, Syria) Also includes topics about Assyrian, Armenian, Chaldean .

15 MPs leave CHP to join IYI Party & run in Turkish polls

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:37 pm

Erdogan Calls Early Turkish Elections in Bid to Solidify Power

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Wednesday called elections for June 24, almost a year and a half earlier than scheduled, saying the situation in Syria and Iraq, as well as economic stability, demanded it.

Mr. Erdogan has long made it clear that he intended to run for re-election — he has led the country for 15 years, first as prime minister, then as president — and speculation had been rife for months that he would call elections early.

He nonetheless surprised many observers by calling the elections so soon, as well as while Turkey remains under a state of emergency. The state of emergency, in place since a failed coup in July 2016, gives the police added powers, restricts the right of assembly and is likely to constrain campaigning.

But Mr. Erdogan’s abrupt move seemed intended to seize a ripe moment — he remains the country’s most popular politician, with some 40 percent support — to consolidate his powers at a time when domestic politics in Turkey and international trends seem to favor leaders in his autocratic style.

The elections, both presidential and parliamentary, will bring forward Turkey’s transition to a presidential system under which the president will gain still more authority, the prime minister’s office will be abolished and the powers of Parliament reduced.

Those changes were all approved in a referendum last year that Mr. Erdogan had campaigned for strenuously, with the obvious intention that he would be the first president to hold the enhanced office.

Mr. Erdogan has since been urging members of his Justice and Development Party to work to build enough support for him to secure the election in the first round.

“Although its seems there are no serious issues arising as the president and the government are working in harmony, the diseases of the old system can confront us at every step,” Mr. Erdogan said in a speech broadcast live on television. “For our country to make decisions about the future more strongly and apply them, passing to the new governmental system becomes urgent.”

Minutes later, the Turkish Parliament approved a request from Prime Minister Binali Yildirim to extend the state of emergency — which has been in force since the failed coup — for another three months, the Turkish news agency Anadolu reported.

While the coup attempt was violent — nearly 250 people died, including Mr. Erdogan’s election campaign manager and close friend — critics have since accused him of using the extended powers under emergency rule to crack down on political opponents and dissent.

Tens of thousands have been jailed, accused of links to Fethullah Gulen, the Islamist cleric accused of masterminding the coup, or to other designated terrorist organizations. And over 100,000 people have been suspended from public-sector jobs. Mr. Gulen has denied involvement in the coup.

Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli said Wednesday that the government had identified three thousand top-level officers belonging to the Gulen movement inside the military, and was preparing to purge them soon with a government decree, the Anadolu news agency reported.

Mr. Erdogan said that events in Syria and Iraq, both countries in which Turkey has deployed troops, had made a transition to the presidential system more urgent. He also said the economic situation demanded certainty.

“With the cross-border operations we maintain in Syria, and also historical events happening in the area centered around Syria and Iraq, it became a must for Turkey to climb over the uncertainty as soon as possible,” the president said.

“In a period where developments about Syria accelerate, and we have to make very important decisions on issues from macroeconomic equilibrium to big investments, it is a must to drop the election issue from the agenda as soon as possible,” he added.

Yet political opponents and commentators have been predicting for months that Mr. Erdogan would call early elections as soon as he could be sure of winning. He is known to closely watch opinion polls and has enjoyed a bounce in his personal rating since ordering military operations against Kurdish militias in the northern Syrian enclave of Afrin in January.

The country also enjoyed over 7 percent growth in the last quarter of 2017. Yet there are signs that the economy is faltering. Inflation remains persistently high, which hurts many of Mr. Erdogan’s own supporters.

The snap election was also seen as a move to undercut political opponents.

Mr. Erdogan’s announcement came after discussions with Devlet Bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s main nationalist party, the Nationalist Movement Party, which has entered a formal alliance with Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., for the elections.

Mr. Bahceli said that he supported early elections for the stability of the country and the economy. But he also seems to be concerned with fending off a rival for the nationalist vote, Meral Aksener, who split from his party and formed her own party, the Good Party, last year, according to Turkish media reports.

The early timing of the election now could prevent Ms. Aksener from running, since her new party may not be considered to have passed the required six months from its first party congress.

Ms. Aksener, a former interior minister, has nevertheless declared her intention to challenge Mr. Erdogan for president and field candidates for Parliament.

Turkey’s largest opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, or C.H.P., was caught flat-footed by the announcement, and has not yet selected a candidate for president. Its leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, ruled out running for the presidency last year.

Engin Altay, the deputy head of C.H.P.’s parliamentary group, told a Turkish television station that a candidate would be chosen within 15 days.

The pro-Kurdish party, the People’s Democratic Party, or H.D.P., has particularly suffered under the state of emergency, with nine members of Parliament in jail, including their popular former leader Selahattin Demirtas and many mayors removed from their posts. The party nevertheless has appointed new leaders and declared itself ready for elections.

Sezai Temelli, the co-chairman of the party, said in a tweet: “June 24 is not early, but a panic election. The government is impotent.”

To win outright in the first round of the election, Mr. Erdogan will need to secure 51 percent of the vote. His personal ratings have been closer to 40 percent in recent opinion polls.

The constitutional changes to create a new presidential system were agreed in a controversial referendum in April last year, which Mr. Erdogan only barely won with a 51 percent yes vote, versus 49 percent who voted no.

Ms. Aksener was a prominent leader of the no campaign and has vowed to assemble similar broad support for the coming elections.

The referendum was criticized as unfair by opposition parties and independent election monitors. Since then, Mr. Erdogan has moved to exercise greater control over the High Election Board and the electoral law, the parties warned.

“The alliance cannot secure 50 percent,” Yalcin Dogan wrote in the online news outlet T24. “So they are changing the structure of the High Election Board and the electoral law in a manner that is against the universal democratic rules. However, the Good Party remains a complete nightmare.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/worl ... tions.html
Last edited by Anthea on Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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15 MPs leave CHP to join IYI Party & run in Turkish polls

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Re: Erdogan Calls Early Turkish Elections to Solidify HIS Po

PostAuthor: Anthea » Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:18 pm

Turkey’s president will win the country’s snap elections. Here’s why they still matter.

This week, Turkey’s president announced the country would hold snap elections on June 24. The outcome of these elections is hardly in question: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will win. But these elections are tremendously important for his rule and understanding contemporary Turkey — as well as the ways in which Erdogan’s authoritarianism differs from some of his contemporaries.

The logic of early elections seems clear. It capitalizes on the largely successful Turkish campaign against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria — and a general sense in Turkey that the broader war with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is going well. The latest round of spats with Turkey’s Western allies, including the United States and Greece, also plays well domestically.

Early elections also lessen the risk that growing economic instability might undermine the government’s popularity. Strong growth in the past year has been accompanied by increasingly high inflation and basic questions about Turkey’s financial stability. It is unclear how long the political pressure and stimulus efforts that the government has employed to keep economic growth high will continue to work. Erdogan’s recent criticisms against international financial markets and statements in favor of a return to the gold standard are unlikely to change the economic fundamentals that have caused concern to credit-rating agencies.

But if Turkey has an authoritarian government, then why should these political calculations matter?

Part of the answer lies in political science’s work on “electoral authoritarianism,” which attempts to understand governance in states where political power is uncontested but the facade of electoral multiparty democracy is maintained. The recent, clearly rigged, elections in Russia and Egypt are examples of this system. These elections serve to demonstrate popular support for an entrenched dictatorship.

In Turkey, however, something more complex is underway. The ultimate outcome of the election is no less predetermined, but the costs of obvious, large-scale ballot rigging are much higher and a fabricated outcome like that in Egypt would be counterproductive in Turkey.

There are two core reasons for this.

Turkish support for democracy

First, there is a broad national consensus in Turkey that the country’s government should be chosen through competitive elections. A recent study found that 86 percent of Turkish citizens believed that “supporting democratic values” was somewhat or very important to being a Turk. Compare that to Russia — where sympathy for “rule by a strong leader” is stronger — or in Egypt, where polling suggests that support for democracy is weaker and in decline.

Turkey was never fully democratic and has become less so. But there is a broad political consensus that Turkey should be a democracy. Could Erdogan rule through flagrant ballot-rigging? Yes, most likely he could. His command of the basic institutions is so great at this point that it is hard to imagine an outcome where the courts, the military or anyone else could effectively stand against him. But to do so would be tremendously costly.

Political parties this election

Of the major opposition parties, one, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), has become a sort of junior partner to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Another, the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (HDP) has been dramatically reduced through massive repression, under the guise of counterterrorism efforts. Its most important leaders have been jailed and face lengthy prison sentences.

The main opposition, the Republican People’s Party, maintains a loyal base but has not been able to rise above 26 percent of the national vote in any parliamentary election since 1977. A significant improvement on this record is unlikely.

The wild card of the new election, an MHP breakaway party called the “Good Party” (it sounds only slightly less awkward in Turkish) has received lots of positive press in the West, but it may not be able to fully compete in the election. Even if it does, there is little reason to believe that the Good Party will live up to its name enough to make significant breaks into the AKP’s base.

Nonetheless, at least on the surface, there is hope. And with that hope, the major parties continue to play by the rules, pretending elections still hold the possibility of ending the AKP’s 16-year reign.

By keeping that illusion alive, Erdogan not only maintains his own legitimacy as a popular democratic leader, he wins the quiescence of the opposition. A 97 percent — or even 75 percent — victory for the AKP would be so blatantly false that the illusion of democracy would be stripped away.

Erdogan doesn’t need the breathtaking victories enjoyed by Vladimir Putin or Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. He needs a bare majority — just enough to maintain his claim on the levers of power and, ideally, with enough of a semblance of fairness.

Ongoing ‘state of emergency’

The 2018 election in Turkey will be held under a state of emergency, which began after the 2016 attempted coup. As in the April 2017 referendum, opposition rallies will likely be harassed, state resources will be levied in support of the ruling party, and blanket pro-government coverage will dominate a compliant media.

Irregularities will be explained away. Indeed, regulations for the Turkey High Election Board have made it less likely that it will offer even mild resistance to any election deception: a recently passed law provides for accepting unstamped ballot boxes, empowers the electoral board to redraw electoral districts or move ballot boxes. Electoral commission staff (most likely government loyalists), rather than party representatives will oversee election stations.

Erdogan remains a tremendously popular politician. The opposition remains divided and mostly unimpressive. Erdogan may not need to cheat to win the 2018 election — but if he needs to, he will. The core of Turkey’s “electoral authoritarianism” is to ensure that victory without blatant ballot rigging.

A simple 51 percent of the vote guarantees Erdogan’s control for at least a decade to come. Getting much more than that undermines his democratic bona fides; getting any less is not an option. Maintaining authoritarian rule while keeping the opposition playing a rigged game is the core of Erdogan’s election game.

Howard Eissenstat is an associate professor of Middle East history at St. Lawrence University and a senior non-resident fellow at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mon ... a8fbb77f33
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Re: Erdogan Calls Early Turkish Elections to Solidify HIS Po

PostAuthor: Anthea » Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:24 pm

IYI Party approved to run in Turkey polls as 15 MPs join its ranks

Fledgeling party, buttressed by induction of 15 opposition MPs, declared eligible to run in June general elections.

Turkey's top election authority has ruled that the fledgeling IYI (Good) Party will be allowed to run in June snap elections, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

The Supreme Election Board has named the newly formed party among the 10 parties eligible to run in the upcoming polls.

Fifteen Turkish MPs from the main opposition switched to the nationalist IYI Party to ensure they could run in the elections in two months, officials from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) said.

Sunday's developments came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week called the parliamentary and presidential polls on June 24, bringing forward the vote by more than a year.

His most credible challenge is seen as coming from Meral Aksener, a popular former interior minister who last year founded Iyi Party after splitting with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which is supporting Erdogan.

The vote on June 24 - the date has to be confirmed by the electoral board - will mark the first time that parliamentary and presidential elections are held under a new system which gives the new president increased powers.

In April 2017, a constitutional referendum narrowly won by the government's "Yes" camp changed Turkey's parliamentary system to an executive presidency.

Parties with 20 or more deputies are recognised as groups in parliament and automatically have the right to run candidates.

The CHP has 116 members in the 550-seat parliament after the departures.

"Our friends will not go down in history as MPs who left their party. They will go down as heroes who saved the democracy following their responsibility to their party," Bulent Tezcan, a CHP spokesperson, said.

"This is not an easy task to do. It is a hard one. But these days of one-man rule are where we show our strength and ability to accomplish hard tasks."

There has also been debate about whether the Iyi Party's convention was held the required six months before voting day - which is a condition to run as a political party in the June 24 polls.

Parliament voted this week to extend the state of emergency - in place since a failed coup attempt in July 2016 - for another three months, meaning the June 24 vote will also take place under emergency rule.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/ ... 59636.html
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