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Local elections in Turkey marred by violence /ROUNDUP/
29 March 2009 | 19:28 | FOCUS News Agency

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n175892

The election day in Turkey was marred by incidents, which killed and injured people. In 33 eastern and southeastern provinces the polling stations closed down at 4:00 p.m., while the stations in the other provinces in the country – at 5:00 p.m.
The media in Turkey note that the bloody balance is six killed and approximately 100 injured people in clashes in seven provinces.
Nearly 48 million people in 81 provinces in Turkey voted for local authorities on Sunday.
Zaman daily says the situation during the elections was calm as a whole.

Who did people vote for
48,006,650 voters were eligible to vote for local authorities with a five-year term in office. The elections are held according to the proportional system and have one round.
There were 177,000 polling stations nationwide. The voting started at 7:00 a.m. and ended at 5:00 p.m.
32 eastern provinces voted between 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. and the other 49 provinces – between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
The residents of the biggest cities voted for members of municipal councils, mayors of municipalities, regional mayors, municipal councilors and deputy mayors. The district centers elected members of district councils, mayors of district cities, municipal councilors and deputy mayors. The residents of the villages voted only for members of district councils and deputy mayors. 16 mayors of the biggest Turkish cities that have a status of big city municipality will be elected. Some of the cities are Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Antalya, Bursa, Diyarbakir and Erzurum.

Voters’ fingers were not painted after voting to avoid irregularities and second voting. An amendment to the election law removed the practice, which had been applied for years.

Bans on coverage
By 6:00 p.m. radio stations and television channel in Turkey are banned from broadcasting any reports that are in favor or to the detriment of a party or candidate, influencing voters’ choice, and announcing statements, forecasts and comments about the election results. The Turkish law allows the release of announcements and statements only by the High Electoral Commission after 9:00 p.m. The Commission, however, has the right to lift the ban on the coverage before the time provided in the law.

Ambitions of main parties
19 political parties ran in the elections. At the end of January the High Electoral Commission allowed 21 parties to compete, but later two of them quitted.

At first governing Justice and Development Party set itself the ambitious objective to gather more than 52% of the votes, but then, after taking into account the effects of the global economic and financial crises in Turkey, it lowered its expectations to 45% of the votes.
The party aims at retaining its mayoral posts in Istanbul and Ankara and adding Izmir and Diyarbakir to them.

The major opposition Republican People’s Party will consider the winning of 25% of the votes as a success. Besides the mayoral posts in eight district cities, the party wants to add other ten district cities – Antalya, Hatay, Sinop and Zonguldak. As to Ankara and Istanbul, Deniz Baykal does not make ambitious predictions.

Pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party is trying to win mayoral posts in the big district cities in Southeastern Turkey – Siirt, Agri, Van and Bitlis – which are now in the hands of the ruling party.

Nationalist Movement Party wants to win mayoral posts mainly in the regions with predominantly Kurdish population in Southeastern and Eastern Anatolia, as well as in the traditional strongholds of nationalists in Central Turkey and along the country’s Black Sea coast.

Forecasts
Opinion polls say that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's governing Justice and Development Party has strong positions among voters and is leading over its major rivals Deniz Baykal's Republican People’s Party and over Nationalist Movement Party. The polls give it between 39.8% and 47.9%.
“I can easily say we will rate first in the elections,” said Erdogan.
“Global economic crisis will not have a negative effect” on the party’s performance, he said.