Turkish Presidential Election: August 10, 2014

[EPG]

Erdogan is probably not a really good person, but many people are exaggerating his negative impact on Turkey (mainly because we are focusing on things that do not matter much for a majority of Turks).

I think they valued Turkey as an illustration that Islam can co-exist with secularism and Western alignment. But that illustration was always based on the power of the generals rather than a settled democratic consensus.

I would speculate that many of the disappointed people were advocates of the rights of Muslim immigrants in Europe, who opposed anti-immigrant rhetoric that Islam is incompatible with secularism and democracy, a rhetoric which has been corroborated by recent events in the Near and Middle East.

[EPG]

Of course we can interpret electoral statistics however we like, if we are the type of people interested in electoral statistics. The average person is more likely to hear about Turkish politics through stories like AKP politicians thinking they have the right to tell women that they shouldn't laugh in public. I think this is one reason why the anti-Erdogan sentiment is more heartfelt than, say, anti-Thai junta or even anti-Sisi sentiment: Turkey was once a secular Islamic country with democratic institutions (albeit flawed ones) on the way to EU membership, and it therefore appeared to be a living refutation of common negative perceptions of Islam, which have been a well-worn path to success among the far-right in Europe in the last 15 years. It's more difficult to refute them when Erdogan's ministers lecture women about laughter, when the brothers and the Sisi take over in Egypt, when the so-called "Islamic State" publicises its menace, and so on.

[EPG]

Also, what would a competitive opposition look like in today's environment?

More Islamic. It would also help if it could win Istanbul.

But, let's not neglect the extent to which AKP benefits from overseeing Turkey's strong economic performance.

[EPG]

Also, what would a competitive opposition look like in today's environment?

More Islamic. It would also help if it could win Istanbul.

But, let's not neglect the extent to which AKP benefits from overseeing Turkey's strong economic performance.

Well they tried being more Islamic in this election and that didn't work.

I personally would try to go more left, that's my bias talking though.

The real answer might just be that the opposition can't win under any circumstances.

Then they need to be more Islamic. Add the non-Kurd share of the third-party vote and you get a pretty good maximum of the vote the left-wing can win in current circumstances, assuming no-one at all switches away. The real answer is, probably, that it is hard to defeat a prime minister overseeing 5 - 6% average GDP growth.

[EPG]

A majority of those Turks living in Germany that are still interested in Turkish politics seem to be rather fervent AKP supporters, but I think that there is no strong correlation between the opinion on Turkish and on German party politics (except for the radical left, of course.) Many Turkish guest workers and ex-guest workers see the SPD (or the Greens) as their natural political home in Germany, while they would never vote for its Turkish sister party, the CHP.

It is an interesting tendency, that one. The most extreme case here would be all those Irish immigrants who tended to vote Labour here but supported Fianna Fail back home

That's absolutely what I was thinking - and you can add the US Democrats to that list as well. The phrase "We are the masters now" comes to mind in explaining the difference between these sympathies. Though the position of the Jews isn't comparable to the Irish, since the modern settlement of the homeland came after the diaspora, they're the only other big diaspora I can think of in a similar situation. I would guess that the same thing applies to them, though national security seems like more of a uniting factor for Jews abroad, and maybe that matters more in the Israeli party system than economics or social topics. It all comes back to the golden rule that politics isn't about policy...