41%. So sad....

Pesky thing democracy, just when you think you have it under control, you don't.   Egypt was an example.  First they voted for Mursi and then applauded for Sisi when the army tossed Mursi out.  Faithless!

It seems most Turks (including "mountain Turks" ) did not want to rejoin the Sultanate.  I seem to recall that Mursi is under sentence of death?  Perhaps Erdogan might consider an extended pilgrimage before the thought of conspiracy with foreign powers to pervert the republican constitution becomes widespread.

Ataturk's army has a long memory. pl

http://dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Jun-08/301042-turkish-voters-deal-major-blow-to-erdogans-ambitions.ashx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Menderes#Coup.2C_trial.2C_execution

Comments

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Colonel,

Thank you for posting this thread. There is a lot of rejoicing in many parts of Turkey. The phone system is overloaded; everyone is calling-or trying to call-everyone else. Turkey is not out of the woods yet, not even close. The entire south-east is an armed camp. Daash cadres, most of them known, can cause lots of trouble. The economy is collapsing. The tayyiban are now claiming that, because of this election, the economy will collapse. It was on the way to collapse, when some hot funds miraculously appeared, but not enough to save their regime. It will be interesting to see if there is honor among these thieves. The next month or so promises to be interesting.

As we go forward, the islamists of AKP-the Muslim Brotherhood-have to destroy themselves. The general population has to see them for the fakes they are, that they can deliver nothing, either in heaven or here on earth. Intervention by TSK would not have solved anything. But, yes, we do have long memories.

Ishmael Zechariah

[TEWFIK BOULENOUAR]

What a pendulum swing... from Ataturk to Egoyan.

[turcopolier]

TB

And back again... pl

[Farooq]

IZ,

In your opinion, did Gulenists play any role in this? If i am not wrong Erdogan will still form the government. Will this loss of majority help in restricting jailing of journalists and others Erdogan feels threatened from?

I did not see this coming and i am really happy for Turks!

[William R. Cumming]

IMO Turkey a modern country and economy. My belief is that few urbanized Turks including those in the Turkish diaspora [some voting from afar] wish it to slide back into primitivism. Could be wrong as always?

[LeaNder]

Ishmael, first thanks, then:

"Intervention by TSK would not have solved anything."

Intervention in what? The election?

What forces besides Erdogan are behind the AKP? It was founded pretty recently I understand.

[confusedponderer]

A lot of Turks live in my part of town. The CHP has an office a street away.

Here is a graphich with the German-Turkish diaspora election results by German cities:

http://www.dailysabah.com/election/2015-general-elections/germany-election-results

[Babak Makkinejad]

The only "Modern" countries in the world are the 23 North American and Western European states that by themselves and in themselves define and reproduce Modernity.

Everyone else - Russia, Romania, Brazil, Japan, China, India, Korea etc. - are un-Modern followers.

This could change but has not - over 400 years.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Evidently, Turkey is a divided country among Gulenists, Muslim Brotherhood, Kemalists, Kurdists and assorted others.

It seems that Turkey has found a way to manage the fantasies of all these disparate peoples - who live in a Dream World of their Own Making - without restoring to Military Rule or Civil War within a constitutional order.

I wish Turkey & Turkish people well in the further development of this dispensation in accommodating various interests within Turkish State and Polity and help make the lives of those who are alive and who are yet to be born better.

One has to start from somewhere.

[Matthew]

CP: I'm always amazed that democracies, including my own, allow expatriates to vote. If you live in Germany permanently, are you actually allowed to vote in Turkish elections your whole life? If so, that is madness.

[mbrenner]

The big open question insofar as American interests are concerned is what the election results mean for Turkey's role vis a vis ISIL and "The Army of Conquest" - aka al-Nusra & Assoc. Perusal of the commentaries reveals a vague consensus that Erdogan's dreams are now just vain fantasies. Can we accept that facile conclusion, though? Erdogan personally seems to have invested so much of himself in the project to Ottomanize Syria, and seems to be so seriously unbalanced, that he likely will do all within his still considerable power to achieve his ambition. Doesn't the high degree of control that he has established over Turkey's security agencies and bureaucracies leaves him in a position to prolong support for the Islamists he's been backing regardless of political changes in Ankara (short of a second election producing an opposition government).

As to al-Nusra specifically, moreover, he is in a partnership with Saudi Arabia and the Gulfies - a partnership that has received some sort of benediction from Obama. So he has substantial support and political coverage on that front and little disincentive to draw back. As to ISIL, since we know so little about the extent and modalities of Turkey's connivance with them, it is much harder to assess the implications of the election. Still, circumstantial logic suggests caution before judging that much will change.

[Babak Makkinejad]

You wrote:

"...Erdogan personally seems to have invested so much of himself in the project to Ottomanize Syri..."

I think not.

He is carrying out the policy of NATO, an alliance in which Turkey has the second-largest army - in my opinion.

As you observed further with regards to Al Nusra:

"...he is in a partnership with Saudi Arabia and the Gulfies - a partnership that has received some sort of benediction from Obama."

The Gulfies being official US allies.

I ask again, why is not the European Union and the United States carrying out economic warfare against ISIS?

I think this will only change once the Monarchy in Jordan is destroyed by ISIS.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Business is booming under ISIS -

http://www.businessinsider.com/syrians-explains-why-business-is-booming-under-isis-2015-6

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Farooq, LeaNder, Babak Makkinejad, William R. Cumming;

The dynamics that are at work in Turkey are complex, and I cannot do justice to them all in a short post. Further, I would be repeating quite a lot of material already included in the "Turkey" section of SST. Please look through the posts, the responses and the embedded links. Only then could one get a superficial idea of the Great Game going on in Turkey. That said, IMO the following observations cannot be disputed:
1-Quite a few outsiders who supported tayyip and his band of kleptocrats got second thoughts, and are now somewhat dismayed to see what he/his have grown into. For us, secularists, it is schadenfreude to say "we told you so".
2-Human rights in Turkey are worse than ever, with more journalists arrested, protests squashed, etc.
3-Financial corruption of all sorts are endemic, especially in the government, particularly invoving Iranian gold, Saudi money and drug money.
4-The judiciary and civil security and intelligence agencies have been corrupted and used for regime ends, as proven in the recent "Balyoz" and "Ergenekon" travesties. Many, including several here used to support these "operations". They should be ashamed of themselves.
5-The tayyiban have supported and armed Daash.
6-Unemployment is rampant, especially among the educated youth. Most are trying to leave.

Finally, most correspondents who discuss Ataturk do not really have a good knowledge of who he is, and what he did. Any soldier, reading up what this man actually did, cannot help but admire him. I certainly do. Comparing him and his team with the current tayyiban regime is, IMO, misguided.

Ishmael Zechariah

[Babak Makkinejad]

Thank you for your comments.

Is there any party in Turkish politics that could be characterized as "Liberal" - real liberal in the sense originally understood in UK in the 19-th century?

Is there anyone who stands for letting people do what they wish without trying controlling them?

[confusedponderer]

Actually, I oppose it. When Sultan Tayyib comes to Germany to campaign on my town I want to throw up. IMO we are unreasonably tolerant to allow that. I would prefer foreigners to leave their political quarrels at home. They have no business here.

I am opposed to dual citizenship also. One can only serve (citizenship entailing rights, and duties) "one master", that is, one nation (like military service). Dual loyalty is an inherent and inevitable problem with dual citizenship IMO. The interests of two nations rarely are identical.

Beyond pandering for the Turkish votes for the SPD, there was no need to institutionalise that. More charitably, probably unduly so, if it wasn't that it was about some foolish belief about a post-national world.

So, things being as they are, dual citizenship IS legal in Germany now, so is expatriate voting, and the Tayyib, or, as unwelcome as far as I am concerned, the CHP, may come here and campaign.

Alas.

[confusedponderer]

I forgot to address this bit: "are you actually allowed to vote in Turkish elections your whole life"

... as far as Erdogan is concerned, and some Turk here will undoubdtedly correct me if I'm wrong, he iirc made expat vote legal, rather obviously because he hoped for electoral advantage in Turkey through the votes from Germany. It was iirc illegal before.

It always ticked me off as indecent and inappropriate when he came to Germany to glory in the adulation of his supporters, a good deal of which by now must own German passports, in halls as some champion of Turks in Germany. The fuck he is.

[Ishmael Zechariah]

CP,

Thanks for the analysis. Yes, expat voting was illegal before tayyip and, yes, it was legalized to give an advantage to the tayyiban.
The links between the kleptocrats and Turkish expats in Germany are interesting:
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/index/ArsivNews.aspx?id=9916248
http://www.todayszaman.com/anasayfa_opposition-blasts-acquittal-of-suspects-in-26-mln-deniz-feneri-fraud-case_380718.html

Ishmael Zechariah

[Matthew]

CP: Totally agree. Dual citizenship = no loyalty. I've always despised "emigres" (as distinct from immigrants). Emigres use the host country to agitate against their homeland. An immigrant makes a home in the host country. They are as different as night and day.

My family are hostages to the fortune of America. I don't want anyone in my government who's not an America Firster-and-Laster.

[turcopolier]

Matthew

You gave up your British passport? pl

[Patrick Bahzad]

Matthew,

Have you realized that there are actually more people with double-nationality who are not "emigres" in any way but just have parents with two different nationalities ? I have two passports, never been an issue ...
Besides, do you think that having one nationality alone would make people immune from having "loyalty" issues ? I wish it were that simple, would make my work a lot easier sometimes ! Dream on ...

[William R. Cumming]

Was Ataturk a fluke of Turkish history or could such a leader again be produced by the Turkish polity?

And many thanks for your many useful and interesting comments.

[William R. Cumming]

You may well be correct but if so that means next large-scale warfare in the so-called developed modern world not in other tiers! Why? Initial costs for one thing.

[Laguerre]

According to your graphic, the percentage of Turks voting for AKP in Germany is much higher than in Turkey itself (53% as against 41%). Are we to suppose that this is because most Turks in Germany come from poorer Anatolia, emigrated to make a living, rather than from the westernised middle class, such as IZ?

[Ishmael Zechariah]

William R. Cumming,

Thanks for the kind words.

The Turks have had many competent leaders over their recorded history. I am sure another Mustafa Kemal would appear when needed.

Here are two links you might find interesting:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/american_military_history/2013/11/the_battle_of_gallipoli_winston_churchill_mustafa_kemal_and_the_battle_that.html

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/18/turkish-pm-erdogan-the-speedy-transformation-of-an-imperial-puppet/

Ishmael Zechariah