Turkish Voters Slap Erdogan
Erdogan loses the parliament election in Turkey. With some 95% of the votes counted the results (seats) are:
- AKP 41.5% (261)
- CHP 25.3% (130)
- MHP 16.7% (84)
- HDP 12.0% (75)
Erdogans AKP lost nearly 9% compared to the last election. The Kurdish HDP jumped above the 10% limit and thereby prevents the AKP from ruling as the sole party. The AKP will have to arrange a coalition with the hard nationalist MHP to form a new government.
The reasons for the loss were the end of the credit fueled economic boom that the AKP had engineered since 2000. There was also a lot of infighting within the AKP and Erdogan's policy of fueling the war in Syria is quite unpopular.
Any coalition government the AKP may arrange will likely be less aggressive than the current one. It is doubtful that the current prime minister Davutoglu, the very aggressive promoter of a new Ottoman empire, will keep his position.
Erdogan as a politician is now wounded and the AKP is weakened. This will lead to more infighting within the AKP and maybe even a split of the party into several fractions. In all this result will likely leave less capacity in Turkey for wide ranging geopolitical adventures.
Posted by b on June 7, 2015 at 18:31 UTC | Permalink
Erdogan's Ottoman dreams just took a hit.. But come to think of it, this won't have much impact.. All the political parties in Turkey work for the interest of NATO.. It's NATO who dictates what Turkey does..
Posted by: Zico | Jun 7 2015 19:17 utc | 2
Interesting map:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/election/default.html
Posted by: Yul | Jun 7 2015 19:31 utc | 3
33 from Noirettethe broken Open Thread
Not 'in case of failure' at all, N, remember this is the same Kerry-Kohn who installed a ruthless Ziofascist regime in Kiev and made 'Defense Slush Fund' provisions of $58B to backstop the inevitable default on IMF loans he promised to cover.
What we'really seeing with Iran is the old Israel-Palestine stall gambit, probably for baaksheesh, certainly for black markets, definitely to keep Iran sanctions in place, and their oil of the market, now that the contango is unwinding and world
demand continues to fall. No, let Iran counter #JohnMcCainArmed&FundedISIS, war is good for bidness, lots of IDIQNB for the Betrayus Cheneyites. You fell for the ruse. Kery-Kohn broke a leg. Isreal-KSA just met in emergency session. On to Tehran.
Posted by: Chipnik | Jun 7 2015 20:04 utc | 4
Shocked but not surprised, that Erdogan the terrorist himself, as well as and ISIL enabler, weapon supplier and even military assistance to ISIL - has only got a 9% drop in the polls. Im not even sure how much of that poll drop is his terrorism proxies re Syria, rather than other issues like his vile misogyny and his obvious fake religiousness to stir up the faithful, as well as economic problem issues.
Seems that aligning yourself with a head chopping, mass murdering terriorist caliphate, still only get minor traction.
What a world.
Posted by: tom | Jun 7 2015 21:36 utc | 5
- That was my take as well.
- Turkey has been running Current Account Deficits and turkish foreign debt is at very high levels. NOT a good sign.
- I continue to think that Erdogan's days as prime minister are numbered. One MAJOR reason is that Erdogan wanted to cozy up with Iran, Russia & China. (think: arms purchases from China) And that wasn't to the liking of the US & NATO.
Posted by: Willy2 | Jun 8 2015 0:40 utc | 6
But wait, USA is sending a lot of weapons to Kurds, I think it is not shocking they are getting more and more powerful?
Posted by: Martin | Jun 8 2015 2:07 utc | 7
@7 martin... that seems part of the end game plan - getting a kurdish state while not offending any of the usual and useful idiots in helping to make that happen.. more divide and conquer type strategy and of course funneling weapons any which way - to good terrorists verses bad and all that bs - essentially sums up amerikan foreign policy for the past however many years...
Posted by: james | Jun 8 2015 5:10 utc | 8
It is very difficult to predict Turkish policy. However, seeing that Edogan's Muslim Brotherhood paarty took a big hit has to be good news for Syria. There will likely be much less enthusiasm to support Al Nusra and ISIS in their wars against Syria and Iraq. The southern border of Turkey is now so heavily infested with those Islamist fanatics we might see the war move into Turkey if they now try to stop supporting them. Hard to see how this will play out.
Posted by: ToivoS | Jun 8 2015 6:25 utc | 10
BTW can any one explain why the margins were corrupted in the open thread below. Was there something wrong at my end or what?
Posted by: ToivoS | Jun 8 2015 6:28 utc | 11
The AKP engineered a credit boom ?
Nonsense. Turkey has been running large Current Account (CA) Deficits from say 2000 onwards. Those Deficits are the automatic result of countries outside the Turkey running CA Surpluses.
For every US Dollar, Euro, Yen or any other currency (take your pick) worth of CA Surplus there is one unit of currency worth of CA Deficit. The total amount of CA surplusses & Deficits is Always and everywhere ZERO.
But when a country has a CA Deficit then it automatically lives beyond its means (Turkey, Poland, Australia, Saudi Arabia, UK, USA ).
Posted by: Willy2 | Jun 8 2015 6:36 utc | 12
re 11
It was the excessively long URL posted by Oui at 51.
Posted by: Laguerre | Jun 8 2015 8:38 utc | 13
It seems that every party has declined to work with the AKP in coalition. So, presumably they will vote again until the AKP gets its majority. Voter fatigue could push the HDP back below 10%, so we're as we were.
Short of a bullet in the head, nothing is going to stop Erdogan, and nobody will stop his demented Syria policy as he flirts between East and West.
Posted by: Pat Bateman | Jun 8 2015 9:29 utc | 14
the theory goes that if in the event of turkey being attacked from the rear whether greece would help
Posted by: mcohen | Jun 8 2015 9:49 utc | 15
Noirette @ 66 in the fucked up open thread...
the driving forces are domination and its immediate descendant, suppression. psychotic, anti-social extremum. our knuckle-dragging saxon/hun genesis presently feigning the neo-con sobriquet, slashing and burning its way along a chaotic, ruinous path of half-baked manifest destiny. this is our birthright, our trail of tears, Squanto's heartbreak, toasted in 1945 with atomic fire.
cheers!
Posted by: john | Jun 8 2015 9:58 utc | 16
This vote against Erdogan is not necessarily due to his Ottoman dreams and mad policies in Syria. The average Turk couldn't give a damn about Syria. Truth is, Turkey's "miracle economy" which has been much talked about for the past few years was just that - a miracle, pure fantasies.
The AKP MB led regime was able to handle the economy primarily due to handouts/investment from Persian Gulf Arab dictators like Qatar, UAE etc etc. Their main motive was to win Turkey over on their side for their Syria project. Of course,it worked like magic while the monies were flowing in until the monies begun to dry out.
Turkey's economy's been running on empty since before the AKP came to power. The AKP, with their MB nonsense, managed to secure funds for a while to prop things up but that couldn't prevent the inevitable. It's just the natural progression of thing.
As they say, it's the economy, stupid!!!
Posted by: Zico | Jun 8 2015 10:21 utc | 17
I am not sure that Turkey is collapsing economically, but some shrinking is to be expected. Structurally, if middle class of KSA and Gulf found it attractive in the past to invest in Turkish real estate, the reasons are not going away, Gulf big shots still have reasons to invest as well, Turkey is exporting quite a bit and if the currency drops, it has industrial potential to boost production in response.
But AK government in minority can be quite open to further attrition. Number one, so-so economy deprived it of some luster. Number two, unprecedented combination of press intimidation and massive purges in police and judiciary will not be sustained, and that propped them through the last two-three years. If the potential coalition parties perceive AK as a sinking ships, they may form a separate coalition, kind of care-taker government devoted to cleaning AK closets from skeletons.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jun 8 2015 12:15 utc | 18
Now that Old'Fisk is not too pro-rebel anymore, the Independent is simply censoring him.
Why is it that when I check for "Fisk Independent" on Google, i get to this page
http://tinyurl.com/9ygsb4k
while when I do it on a phone, I get half a dozen extra articles by him from June on Syria?
Posted by: Mina | Jun 8 2015 13:20 utc | 19
Will Turkey's Elections Lead to an Expansion of Presidential Power?
From TRNN:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13971
Posted by: ben | Jun 8 2015 15:16 utc | 20
The HDP is way more then a Kurdish party
It's an identity politics party
And it's so called 'star' leader is quite connected to western NGO's
I doubt Erdogan will accept that defeat without preparing a somber revenge. Erdogan will fight back. His MIT friends are ready to start assassinations and intimidations.
Turkey is entering in a political uncertainty that will translate into violence. Erdogan will play the savior..
Posted by: Virgile | Jun 8 2015 17:13 utc | 22
Erdogan did not in fact lose, he just won less. Difficult to see that any other coalition could replace him.
Posted by: Laguerre | Jun 8 2015 20:20 utc | 23
Hasn't Erdogan been appropriating more powers from the position of Prime Minister to the position of President (which he now holds) so as to reduce his old position into rubber-stamp yes-man? The next PM may well find him(her?)self sidelined and the parliament, even with an AKP majority, made more and more irrelevant as Erdogan reshapes Turkish politics to concentrate power in his position. He is likely to rely more on his overseas friends for money and support, and thus be even more obliged to assist them in their stupid ventures to turn Syria and Yemen into Wahhabi or Salafi colonies.
In the old days, the Turkish army used to overthrow leaders who got above themselves but these days the Turkish armed forces, purged when Erdogan first came to power, are toothless lions. So what remains in Turkish society to rein back Erdogan, apart from a colour revolution?
Posted by: Jen | Jun 9 2015 0:25 utc | 24
need a sultan for unitary rule. the darkside probably has contingency plans
Posted by: Jay M | Jun 9 2015 1:42 utc | 25
40% of the votes still went toward Erdogan's brand of Islamist Autocracy. Who needs a dictatorship when a plurality of voters will ignore your corruption, support for terrorists, megalomania to return you to power and give you a fig leaf of legitimacy? b is right though, it is a big blow.
Leaders of these so called "democracies" get returned to power because they can provide economic stability/prosperity (or the illusion of it). Put TV's in people's homes and cars in their garage (on credit of course), and they will hand over their rights without a struggle.
Posted by: Almand | Jun 9 2015 4:52 utc | 26
Only 24% of Israeli voters voted for Netanyahu/Likudniks this time around, so Erdogan's election win is a real 'Reagan Landslide' by comparison.
Now that the Republi'Cons have turned 2016 into the CU Iowa Stampede, Bnai'Bart is running an early poll to jock out the thumpers and off-reservationistas, putting Canadian-Cuban Rafael Cruz into the inside track with 31%, against 24 odd contenders. Wow.
Rafael has been hugging close the Reagan trope with just enough McCarthyism to make him look like a capo to the dons, ...but it turns out he was never in a real debating society, only a nerd club, and it was perv Alan Dershowitz labeled Rafael an 'up and comer', ...so you have to wonder why this hot-blooded Cuban macho has no children...but I digress.
Erdogan controls brand-Turkey like Netanyahu controls brand-Israel, and both are patronessas of Great Satan and the Dark Lords of KSA, ...so much for your Hope is Chains.
Posted by: Chipnik | Jun 9 2015 9:42 utc | 27
chipnik at 4 and john at 16 (re the previous, busted thread) yeah, and you guys may be right, and as i said in another post probably unread, i have a lot of doubts etc. which is why i posted in the first place. but..seriously…real men want to go to teheran and all that? not any time soon (years) if ever i reckon, but that is an opinion off the cuff. as i pointed out, imho the brewing, putative ‘deal’ is not favorable to iran, it represents extra mechanisms of control, it is another turn of the screw in a slow process that also takes into account pressure from biz/corp/finance interests. it is a good ex. of balancing geo-pol control, domination, with ‘opening it up’ economically - particularly for the eu’ers, as i and others have pointed out - which, inter alia, serves the us aims of coercing eu away from russia, they could sell more cars and tennis shoes or folderol to iran … apologies for the incursion on erdogan discussion…cheers…
Posted by: Noirette | Jun 9 2015 15:13 utc | 28
@25 almand - your last paragraph is so true... may as well lump canada, usa and a host of other countries in that observation..
Posted by: james | Jun 9 2015 16:32 utc | 29
@26
Ted Cruz has no children because he's a mind control slave-homo. All the better to keep the puppets in line, knowing that the conservative values voters will howl for blood if it gets out this macho Texan-Cuban-Canadian carpetbagger is flaming. He'll do what he's told, for the love of sausage.
Posted by: farflungstar | Jun 9 2015 16:59 utc | 30
Posted by: farflungstar | Jun 9, 2015 12:59:27 PM | 30
"He'll do what he's told, for the love of sausage."
yesssss said shrek to donkey....hee haw hee haw...fix that image firmly then overlay with chris tucker character from THE FIFTH ELEMENT giving a running commentary
Posted by: mcohen | Jun 9 2015 23:11 utc | 31
@30 - I think that's an interesting assessment. Whatever is wrong with him, it deserves scientific study. As does Santorum. Both remarkably bizarre characters.
There is something seriously wrong with many of the candidates. As someone said, how is it possible that out of 300 million US citizens, we have to choose between a small group of people you wouldn't want to even come in contact with.
b
Let me propose a new thread in which you visit Bnai'Bart to cast your vote among the 24, then capture their polling results, and publish the same kind of story you just did on Erdogan, so we can balance Bnai'Bart's jock-up with some entertaining high-level observations that Google will pick up and distribute into the aether. I voted for Graham, Carson and Her Shriekness, hopefully that will skew B'Bart polls away from Caped Crusader Rafael and his Bat Boy Walker.
Posted by: Chipnik | Jun 10 2015 10:54 utc | 33
@32 Have you ever talked to your neighbors? People are bizarre. The other issue is people like each other in person. It might seem trite, but there was a Seinfeld where Elaine discovered women who weren't pro-choice. Santorum appeals to the ignorant and stupid who are actively disparaged for not being something. They may not actively agree with a Santorum, but they see a person going against the same people who mock them. Of course, there is just projection.
Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Jun 10 2015 12:57 utc | 34
OT
Vladimir Putin pulls no punches in an interview with Corriere della Sera. See the full transcript below.
By Corriere della Sera
June 09, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Mint Press" - Full transcript of Corriere della Sera’s interview with Vladimir Putin
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42094.htm
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 10 2015 13:02 utc | 35
@ 30: Homo or not, who cares? The Republican"clown car"rolls on. More diversion for idiot
America. Ment to suck up air time on MSM, so as to limit coverage of any relevant candidates. Not that the MSM needs an excuse to limit debate. It's what they do.
Posted by: ben | Jun 10 2015 14:13 utc | 36
@ 30: Homo or not, who cares? T
Well, it kind of DOES matter if the Zioscum-lobby are using it to blackmail/control him,( which is probably what they are doing)
YOU might not think it matters, but so what? When did you get to be the sole-arbiter of what other people might be concerned about?
Lots of people probably would care that his closet-skeletons are being used to control him
so as to limit coverage of any relevant candidates.
What does this "relevant candidates" construction of yours even mean?? - What "relevant candidates" are you talking about? Relevant to what?
I hope you're not talking about that awful Stein woman and her ridiculous Green Party
There isn't a Green Party in existence that didn't turn out to be a right-wing trojan horse once they got into Gov't
Posted by: Ted's Cruising | Jun 10 2015 14:27 utc | 37
Erdogan did not in fact lose, he just won less. Difficult to see that any other coalition could replace him.
Posted by: Laguerre | Jun 8, 2015 4:20:59 PM | 23
yep - "winning less" is still a win
Merkel for example "won less" in 2005 election, with her party losing over 20 seats compared to the previous election.
So did she "lose"?
No, of course not, she ended up sitting in Berlin running the German Puppet Gov't on behalf of the US/Zio empire, and is still there serving her US/Zio masters today
Posted by: Ted's Cruising | Jun 10 2015 14:39 utc | 38
addendum to #37
right-wing trojan horse = right-wing/Capitalist trojan horse
Posted by: Ted's Cruising | Jun 10 2015 14:42 utc | 39
Speaking of Puppets, here's a member of Zio-Trojan Horse Gregor Gysi-led "Die Linke", making some sense.
She'll probably be fine as long as she doesn't totally f**k up by saying anything truthful about the behaviour of the Racist Supremacists in Israel
http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2015/06/wagenknecht-community-of-values-data.html
Sahra Wagenknecht: "Community of values," data collection, and other "pieces from the madhouse"Speech to The Left Party, June 6, 2015
June 9, 2015
Translated from German by Tom Winter
Dear Colleagues, in politics it's plain truth: the shabbier the contents, the more emphatic the justifications. And so there will be a meeting tomorrow in Elmau of not only a self-proclaimed government of the world, that nobody needs, but -- if we are to believe Mrs Merkel -- a meeting, behind high fences, of something much, much more noble, namely a community of values. A community of values, in which only those professing the values of international law are allowed. I do not know if the highly over-esteemed Chancellor noticed that if you would take this principle seriously, the Japanese Prime Minister would be damn lonely in Elmau. Because, except for Japan there is not a single country in the G7 that has not gotten itself involved in international law-breaking war. It is a sad reality, but it is a reality.And in fact one has to add that Merkel's community-of-values is not very picky in choosing their friends - if the Ukrainian government is one, that puts Nazis in leadership positions and conducts war with nazi battalions; if Saudi Arabia is one, that has beheaded more people than the barbaric murderers of ISIS. And meanwhile we find out that Washington had its fingers in the game right at the foundation of ISIS, just as before in the case of the Taliban. First plant terror and then fight it with arms supplies and terrorist wars, thereby destabilizing entire regions, with the attendant inhuman suffering and millions of refugees -- and all this just to keep expanding their own spheres of influence and to seize lucrative commodities in their talons. Whoever takes this NATO strategy for a value-based policy, and who still believes Germany's responsibility in the world depends on putting this kind of policy up front, needs their head examined.
Posted by: Ted's Cruising | Jun 10 2015 14:51 utc | 40
TC @ 37:
"I hope you're not talking about that awful Stein woman and her ridiculous Green Party.
Nope, Bernie Sanders would be a candidate with a relevant message. IF, he can get his message out. His domestic policies are sound. Foreign policies? Time will tell.
Posted by: ben | Jun 10 2015 15:23 utc | 41
P.S. Relevancy? You decide:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017265401
Posted by: ben | Jun 10 2015 15:30 utc | 42
Sorry b, for the OT:
RT @ 43: Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. Your ad hominems are showing, and very telling.
Posted by: ben | Jun 10 2015 17:02 utc | 43
Erdogan clearly lost in the sense that he did not get what he wanted. He will have to either swallow some painful compromise to get a coalition government (ANY compromise in painful to that guy) or call for new elections that will probably have the same outcome, but quite possibly having yet lower vote for AK, his party. Some people like to vote for the winner, and Erdogan charisma suffered a dent.
I think that there is a more general mechanism at work here, something I have observed in USA. To some political movements, political capital is to be gained (not particularly unique) for the purpose to spend it (that is more special). They amass various levers of power, cooperation of business to get funded, control of the judiciary, manipulation of vote rolls (American specialty) and so on, for the purpose of getting through reforms that are not particularly popular, like getting rid of the eyesore that is Social Security (in USA), making a few more foreign wars even when wars are not so popular anymore (common to Turkey and USA), making some retrograde social reforms and so on. Amazingly, part of the political capital is spent on venting spleen, insulting assorted opponents. To people who like to do it, it is a more potent source of pleasure than booze, so they tend to overdo it. This explains how parties like GOP and AK are amazingly effective in accumulating "political capital" but eternally totter little above or little below overall majority: as soon as they feel that they got enough of it, they spend it.
The other model is a cautious political movements that gain from the antics of the other model and then bore potential voters to stupefaction. Like Democrats and perhaps Turkish CHP.
In that classification, Putin combines diligent hoarding of lever of power and popularity and very cautious attitude toward spending the political capital, with a dash of imaginative actions that prevent boredom among the population.
Concerning Turkey, a lot depends how Erdogan and AK adapt to the new part of the political cycle (and what his opponents will do, as they form three groups that mutually dislike each other in various degrees).
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jun 12 2015 13:47 utc | 44
The comments to this entry are closed.
thanks b.. i am especially curious how this impacts the porous border of turkeys which allows for some of the mayhem that is happening in syria? anyone have any predictions or thoughts on how, or if this will change any?
Posted by: james | Jun 7 2015 19:11 utc | 1