Andreas Gross, Head of the PACE delegation<\/a> put it, the campaign for the November 1st elections\u00a0was characterized by unfairness and, to a serious degree, fear.<\/p>\nFair, it certainly was not \u00a0but by and large, the vote was free.<\/p>\n
Therefore, it would be wise not to over-simplify by just saying that it was fear-mongering that brought this latest victory for Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party.<\/p>\n
At the June 7th poll, it was mainly the conservative Kurdish voters that had turned away from the AKP, denying them an outright majority and backed the HDP. The HDP, claiming to be a party for the whole of Turkey, also attracted the countrywide support of many.<\/p>\n
A turbulent five months later, it was once again mainly the conservative Kurdish vote that has made the sharp turn of fortunes for the AKP. Meanwhile, the left and liberal voters abondened the HDP.<\/p>\n
The AKP\u2019s campaign slogan \u201cstability over chaos\u201d resonated nowhere better than among the residents of towns and villages in the south-east where street battles once again became a daily reality.<\/p>\n
Cought between the PKK violence and heavily stepped up state pressure, close to a million of them switched their alligance from the heavily demonized HDP to the stability-promising AKP.<\/p>\n
To give credit where credit is due, the AKP had also reviewed and re-adjusted its candidates in the south-east, this time fielding prominent figures with strong Kurdish tribal credentials.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, the AKP has played the Turkish nationalism card very well, pulling more than a million votes from its right-wing, nationalist opponent MHP.<\/p>\n
Shrewd and effective their election campaign might have been, during the last five months, the AKP and its leaders have sown many more seeds of division and hatred in Turkey.\u00a0 By turning pain and suffering to their advantage, they have revived their political fortunes. As well as deepening ethno-sectarian strife, they also encouraged anti-Western sentiment and paranoia in the country.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Turkey is more stable, but far less governable.<\/p>\n
As a result, it is now the new government\u2019s turn to be fearful and intimidated.<\/p>\n
The post-election arrests of two editors of the Nokta magazine on charges of \u201cstaging a coup attempt\u201d and an intensifying crackdown on political opponents clearly show how thin the line between their new-found confidence and fear is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is no doubt that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) ruthlessly forced its way to success at the polls. Following the bomb attack in Ankara on October 10th, the opposition parties temporarily suspended their campaign rallies. The Kurdish-affliated People\u2019s Democratic Party (HDP) did not feel safe enough to resume its public gatherings before the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27855,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27853\/revisions\/27855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}