Via Reuters: Turks Protest Ahead of Early Elections
At least 1 million Turks took to the streets of Izmir on Sunday to demand their country remain a secular state, stepping up pressure on the Islamist-rooted government before July elections.Organizers hoped the third major anti-government protest in a month would unite a fractured opposition ahead of the poll.
I am always skeptical of claims of one million marchers, but that aside there is little doubt that these pro-secularism rallies are huge. The key is, however, not marches but votes. If the pro-secular portion of the Turkish population wants to retain secular rules without having to rely on extra-legal means (i.e, a military coup) then they need to get together and win enough seats to forestall the AK from winning 2/3rds of the legislature. The real solution, which will be unattainable in the short run, is to amend the electoral rules to make them more proportional than they currently are. At the moment the system is such that the AK are able to win almost 2/3rds of the seats in the parliament with only about 34% of the vote.
Popular election of the president would likely be a good idea as well, but only if an absolute majority (i.e., a two-round system) were put in place (a la France), a plurality system (a la Mexico) would not solve the problem–indeed, it would likely guarantee that the AK or like party could capture the presidency, which would simply lead to military intervention.
In regards to the upcoming early elections, there are some interesting developments:
The political crisis has brought about mergers between opposition parties in the hope of passing a 10 percent threshold of votes in July to enter parliament.[...]
Opinion polls show the centre-right AK Party is likely to win most votes in July but it may fail to win an outright majority, forcing it to form a coalition government.
The degree to which the AK represents the kind of threat to secularism that many Turks think remains an open question. For example, if the party is, indeed, pro-entry into the EU, it seems rather unlikely that they are also in favor of the movement towards a religious state. Turkey would hardly be allowed entry into the EU if it became a reactionary Islamist state.
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Dr. Taylor,
Even in the case of AK getting the same (34 %) vote in next election, they will only be able to get 200 seats in the parliament, because other parties, as you said, getting together and will not stuck in the 10 % threshold. That is, in last election AK got about 150 seats more than it would not have under normal circumstances. Two right wing and one Kurdish party stucked in the threshold and their seats went to AK. Our election system !!!
By the way,
Please do go to youtube and put TALIBAN RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN in the search box. there is a four minutes video. The one on the right side of Taliban is our Prime Minsiter. This is before 9/11.
Comment by serhat — Sunday, May 13, 2024 @ 1:35 pm
Serat,
I checked out the video, but I can’t tell what I am looking at exactly.
My point is, and I admit I don’t know the full answer to the question, that there is a fundamental tension between the notion that the AK wants to go the Taliban route and the idea that they want to join the EU. Those are incompatible directions.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, May 13, 2024 @ 2:41 pm