Etiket elections

AKP loses ground at Sunday’s local elections

Niyazi Dalyanci “The results, so far, are not satisfactory,” Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said just after midnight at his party headquarters commenting on the incoming figures from the polling stations at Sunday’s local elections. “We will derive the necessary lessons from the message that the nation has given us and we will do the necessary adjustments in our policies,” he added. The palatial headquarters of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara had been preparing for jubilations over yet another election victory with a big screen placed at the large car park in front and plans for the prime minister to address cheering crowds from the balcony as he did after his landslide victory at the July 2007 parliamentary elections. As the early results did not indicate such a massive triumph, Erdogan preferred to address members of the press inside the briefing chamber at his headquarters. The reason for the prime minister’s chagrin was, AKP’s votes hardly reached 40 percent of the total compared to 42 percent in the 2004 local elections and 47 percent in general elections in 2007. Another reason was his party could not win in major constituencies such as Izmir and Diyarbakir that Erdogan announced as his primary targets during his election campaigning. In other places the race was close with the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) that managed to increase its votes from 21 percent in 2004 to 28 percent on Sunday. Rightwing Nationalist Action Party (MHP) also recorded gains from 10 percent to 15 percent in its share in the overall vote. In Istanbul, although the metropolitan municipality remained under the AKP mayor Kadir Topbas, CHP’s Kemal Kilicdaroglu came as a close runner up with almost 37 percent of the vote. Kilicdaroglu, a deputy in the parliament who made headlines last year […]

Campaigning turns coarse as March 29 local elections near

“You got to power, but you failed to be a proper man,” snapped Deniz Baykal, the leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) criticizing the language used by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his election campaigning. “This maganda style does not suit a prime minister,” he added. The definition of the slang word, maganda, is given in Turkish dictionaries as “an ill-mannered, vulgar and uncouth man.” Erdogan retorted by opening a libel case against Baykal demanding 50,000 TL ($28,000) in damages. But the argument did not stop there. Baykal addressing his party group defended himself. “Let’s see the epithets the prime minister hurled at us so far. He used words like ‘scum,’ ‘politically immoral,’ ‘dishonest’ towards us? What is more appropriate than saying that this style does not fit a prime minister? Until now, the prime minister opened four libel cases against me. Every single one of them was rejected by the courts. We never went to court against him. If he wants to have respect he must learn how to show respect to others,” Baykal said. Local elections in Turkey scheduled for March 29, have already provided enough material to keep the courts busy, mostly coming from Erdogan’s lawyers. Baykal was not the only politician to become the object of litigation by Erdogan. In a flurry of libel cases, Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the rightwing Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and a number of journalists also took their share of court cases for “insulting” the prime minister. One petition by Erdogan’s lawyers alleged that Bahceli “violated the personality rights” of Erdogan in a written campaign statement by saying, “Prime Minister Erdogan has appeared before the Turkish nation with a low level and cheap strategy based on lies, slander, abuse and deception. By taking up the weapon of […]