Cyprus-Forum.com

[Lit]

Its that time of year where "democracy" speaks in Turkey. Here are the results:
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=home

By Ben Holland and Steve Bryant

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Turks voted today in local elections likely to bolster Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s mandate to press on with challenges to the country’s armed forces and courts, which see him as an Islamist threat to the secular system.

Voters across the predominantly Muslim country of 72 million are electing municipal councils as well as about 3,000 mayors and local officials. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party will probably emerge the winner when preliminary results are published by the election board in Ankara after 7 p.m. local time, according to opinion polls. Voting ended at 5 p.m.

Erdogan, 55, tried to relax Turkey’s secular rules after his 2007 victory in general elections -- and was almost barred from politics as a result. His plans for post-election constitutional changes in the European Union membership candidate may revive those tensions with the judges and the military, which has toppled four governments since 1960.

“Erdogan and his party have been branded a center of anti- secular activity,” said Bulent Aliriza, head of the Turkey program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, in a telephone interview. “We’ll have to see whether he comes out and throws caution to the wind.”

Polling Violence

Those tensions may have contributed to violence today. Six people died and about 90 people were injured in gunfights and brawls related to the polling, the CNN Turk news channel reported on its Web site. Violence broke out in the eastern provinces of Sanliurfa, Kars, Diyarbakir and Van.

Erdogan’s party has won three straight elections since 2002 as Turkey enjoyed a record spell of economic growth. This latest referendum on his rule has taken place as the economy contracted and unemployment rose. About 48 million people were registered to vote.

He has put his leadership at the center of the campaign, speaking at rallies in more than 50 of Turkey’s 81 provinces in the past six weeks. Justice party posters typically show a giant-sized Erdogan standing behind the local candidate.

The government has also kept the purse strings open, delaying a new accord with the International Monetary Fund that would require budget cuts. In Tunceli province, the state handed out 5 million liras ($3 million) of free home appliances to voters in the three months before elections.

Leading in Polls

Surveys show the strategy is working. Erdogan may win 48 percent of the vote for municipal councils, according to a poll by research company Konda published March 26. The study interviewed 7,615 people and didn’t specify a margin of error. His party won 47 percent in the 2007 general election and 42 percent in 2004 local elections.

Erdogan told reporters on March 13 that he plans to introduce measures after the election to change the structure of Turkey’s 11-member Constitutional Court and make it harder to ban political parties. He didn’t give further details.

The steps may allow parliament to nominate additional judges to the court and increase judicial scrutiny over the army’s budget and its regular purges of officers deemed pro- Islamist, Hurriyet Daily News reported on March 18, citing a Justice party draft document.

The government hasn’t given details of the proposed changes. Nihat Ergun, deputy head of the Justice party, didn’t respond to a call seeking comment.

Political Ban

Prosecutors filed a lawsuit in March last year to ban Erdogan from politics and shut down his party for seeking to introduce Islamic law. The case, which cited Justice party legislation to lift the student headscarf ban, failed by a single vote in the Constitutional Court.

The army sought to block Erdogan’s presidential candidate Abdullah Gul in 2007 because of his Islamist past, forcing Erdogan to call a snap election in July of that year. Gul was elected president a month later by parliament.

Erdogan’s proposals could renew tensions between the government and the generals, especially if Erdogan seeks to push them through without opposition support, said Wolfango Piccoli, London-based analyst for Eurasia Group, a political research firm.

“These are obviously reforms that Turkey needs, but the key is to achieve consensus and the Justice and Development Party has shown it isn’t very good at that,” Piccoli said. “Things could get difficult very quickly.”

Alleged Coup

Still, opposition to Erdogan within the army and judiciary may be weakened by an investigation into an alleged attempt to overthrow his government.

A court in Istanbul on March 25 agreed to hear charges against two retired generals accused of leading the alleged coup plot, and other suspects in the case include the wife of a Constitutional Court judge, according to the indictment. Three other ex-generals are being investigated in the case, the Milliyet newspaper reported on March 26.

A surge in support for the Justice party would increase the risk of political tensions after the election, said Ahmet Akarli, an economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London, in a March 23 report.

A drop in Erdogan’s vote to 35 percent or less would also carry risks, since a government unsure of its public support would be less confident in pursuing IMF-backed austerity policies that aren’t popular with voters, Akarli said.

Economy Suffers

Industrial output plunged 21 percent in January as Europeans stopped buying Turkish-made cars and televisions, and unemployment surged to 13.6 percent. The economy, in recession for the first time since 2001, probably shrank at least 10 percent in the first quarter of 2009, UBS AG said in a March 24 report.

While living standards are falling for the first time in Erdogan’s six-year premiership, his support is holding up partly because rivals are weak, said Ozer Sencar, head of the Ankara- based research company Metropoll.

“There’s no real opposition,” he said. “Few Turks believe the other parties offer any solution.”

Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, has lost seven local and national elections since 1994, winning an average 13.5 percent of the vote.

[paliometoxo]

thanks for the links