{"id":27677,"date":"2015-05-06T23:53:34","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=27677"},"modified":"2015-05-06T23:53:34","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:53:34","slug":"real-issues-that-are-ignored-in-turkish-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/real-issues-that-are-ignored-in-turkish-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Real issues that are ignored in Turkish elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the 7th<\/sup> May, Britain is holding one of the most unpredictable general elections with no party to win a majority.<\/p>\n

There are strict rules and regulations governing television and radio broadcasts in their coverage of election campaigns but for the printed and online press, pretty much anything goes.<\/p>\n

British press has been more partisan than usual and, according to some, the quality of its election coverage has never been more trivial.<\/p>\n

The Guardian columnist George Monbiot<\/a> was particularly critical of the media, not so much for what they report, but for what they do not.\u00a0 \u201cAnyone would think that the media didn\u2019t want us to understand the real choices confronting us\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The corrupt and broken system under which the British voters will be voting, the system of political funding giving the super-rich and big corporations power to influence policy, urgent need for financial and fiscal reform, unequal tax burdens and numerous social problems ranging from an epidemic of loneliness to the shocking rise in conditions such as self-harm – there are many issues that both the political parties and the media have largely ignored.<\/p>\n

Reading George Monbiot\u2019s criticism of the silence of politicians on these crucial issues, enforced by \u201ca narrow and retentive public discourse, dominated by the corporate media and the BBC, which ignores or stifles new ideas, grovels to the elite and ostracises the excluded, keeping this nation in a state of arrested development\u201d made me look at Turkey\u2019s election campaign with a different eye.<\/p>\n

There is no impartial public broadcaster in Turkey and the communications regulator, The Supreme Council of Radio and Television (RTUK) has done nothing to stop the one-sided reports by radio and television channels giving an unfair advantage to the governing party.<\/p>\n

The majority of the mainstream media is more than biased. As well as conducting negative campaigning against the opposition parties and their candidates, some are positively engaged in \u201cmanufacturing\u201d documents and evidence to undermine opponents.<\/p>\n

A handful of independent publications and journalists, together with some in social media, are trying their best to hold the politicians to account but they are not popular or influential enough to push many of the crucial but wilfully ignored issues on to the political agenda.<\/p>\n

If I were to list four big issues that really matter in Turkey\u2019s general election on the 7th<\/sup> June but rarely get debated as a significant policy issue during the campaign, this is what it would look like – in no particular order.<\/p>\n