Etiket march 29

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 […]