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| The Grand Turk |
| With the country’s changing political culture, is a Turkish spring in the offing? |
| 2016-07-08 |
| [DAWN] In 2002, AKP, led by the charismatic Recep T. Erdogan, managed to win that year’s election purely on an economic platform. It also promised to help take ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... into the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... The results of the AKP government’s economic policies were startling. Turkey became one of the few European countries to enjoy healthy economic growth in that period. This helped AKP to attract a wide coalition of voters in the 2007 election. Conservatives and secularists alike voted heavily for the party. AKP continued to focus on economic issues and refrained from using religious symbolism or rhetoric. It was re-elected in 2011, still attractive for a wide variety of voters. But by then, Erdogan had begun to face severe criticism for becoming a ’megalomaniac’and undemocratic. In 2012, the government tried to make constitutional amendments aimed to strengthen the presidency. Critics saw it as Erdogan’s attempt to maintain power unconstitutionally. Rising criticism, the winding down of the economy, and resultant political turmoil saw Erdogan begin to use religiously-tinged rhetoric. When violent protests against his rule erupted in 2013, Erdogan claimed that the protests were ’part of a plot by the Americans and Israelis’ to overthrow him. In the June 2015 elections, AKP lost its majority. But no party could form a government and another election was held in November. Erdogan warned that AKP’s loss would cause severe economic downturns and political violence. He also suggested that only he could prevent Turkey from descending into chaos. Incredibly, his message stuck, and AKP regained its electoral strength. But AKP today is a pale reflection of what it was when it first emerged in the early 2000s. Turkey is facing political and economic crisis and an unprecedented wave of religious militancy and Kurdish separatism. Erdogan has continued to mutate into becoming an authoritarian figure, who sees conspiracies in every corner and is at best, ambiguous about his regime’s engagement with the dreaded Lion of Islam Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group. Many commentators in Turkey now believe the AKP is on its last legs. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 grom In Tunisia in 2014, a govt dominated by an Islamist party was defeated in a parliamentary type election. Of course that means a 65% Islamist govt became a 30% Islamist govt. The Revolution from the bottom in Romania in 1989 is an example an ideological collapse. so there are a few, but its not the general rule |
| Posted by: lord garth 2016-07-08 12:13 |
| #2 And a pony --- the only way to dislodge an Islamic government is military coup: like they had in Egypt, or like they used to have in Turkey before Erdogan castrated the military. Hell, the only example I know of an ideologically based government overthrown without military coup is "Perestroika" --- and that was a KGB operation. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-07-08 02:53 |
| #1 "Turk(ex)it"? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2016-07-08 00:43 |