Turkish Presidential Election: August 10, 2014

[palandio]

You may also look on it the other way round. Many of Istanbul's working class districts are 'Anatolianized' in the sense that often most inhabitants in one neighborhood stem from the same village in Anatolia, they still identify with their ancestral village and its (e.g. religious) traditions, they travel there every summer for several weeks. In many senses they are rural folks displaced to the suburbs of a mega-city. They live in Istanbul, but they vote like their cousins 500 miles away.

You can look at it the other way, but you have to be careful to avoid absurdity when doing so (i.e. it is important to avoid implying - as often seems to happen - that the city really 'belongs' to the educated middle classes). All of those patterns are entirely typical of first generation urbanisation, of course.

You're absolutely right that it would be wrong to think that the city belongs to some group because they or there ancestors might have been there earlier. I still found it useful to point out the internal migration and recent urbanisation aspect.
(Your Istanbul maps are great, too.)

[...]
I was talking to a Turkish acquaintance earlier this year about Turkish politics, and he definitely seemed to organize the parties on a spectrum with the CHP and MHP on the same side - nationalist and militantly secular - with one just more extreme than the other. This person, for what it's worth, was secular and anti-Erdogan but also kind of down on the opposition parties.

I also have the feeling that the Turkish political spectrum at the moment is not the classical weastern spectrum, but the cleaveage is more like Kemalism vs. Political Sunni Islam with all that this includes.
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.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The Kemalist's predicament remind me of the Nehru-Gandhi's for some reason. They seem to expect that their history alone and being "secular" gives them the right to have the country.

[Famous Mortimer]

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.

Ideally the left would reach out to the Kurds as well. It's just not very likely.

[Sol]

The Kemalist's predicament remind me of the Nehru-Gandhi's for some reason. They seem to expect that their history alone and being "secular" gives them the right to have the country.

Nehru-Gandhis I think have more of a natural base.

[Famous Mortimer]

1961, 1973, 1977, and 1999 were the only elections the left ever came in first in Turkey. 1961, which was right after a coup, basically under duress, was their best result and that was only 36%.

Even before AK, centre-right, Islamic leaning parties almost always won in the 40s.

[Famous Mortimer]

Come to think of it, 73 and 99 were basically after coups as well.

[Хahar 🤔]

Of course any historical view of Turkish politics must account for the fact that the Turkish left was killed in 1980. It's not necessarily wrong to refer to the AKP as a party of the right, if we take the right to mean the currents descended from Menderes and his movement, but the CHP and its various Kemalist relatives are certainly not of the left.

[palandio]

The far north-east (Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, Iğdır) seems to be leaning more to the CHP (also MHP and in the past DSP and DYP) than neighboring regions. Any reason for that? Armenia?

On a winning strategy for the Turkish opposition: For the moment it seems that Turkey's party system has involved into a system with one structurally dominant party. That's not so unusual, see Japan, South Africa, Bavaria, post-independence India, post-independence Israel etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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 (given the recent collapse in FF's political standing I presume that the latter part of that is no longer true... but we can be fairly sure that they don't back Irish Labour, lol). The Indian diaspora here is also interesting because so much of it comes from Gujarat; they might mostly vote the same way here, but they certainly don't support the same side wrt India...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The far north-east (Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, Iğdır) seems to be leaning more to the CHP (also MHP and in the past DSP and DYP) than neighboring regions. Any reason for that? Armenia?

Yeah, that's a strange one. Iğdır at least is pretty heavily Azeri, so maybe that's a factor?

[Sol]

The far north-east (Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, Iğdır) seems to be leaning more to the CHP (also MHP and in the past DSP and DYP) than neighboring regions. Any reason for that? Armenia?

Yeah, that's a strange one. Iğdır at least is pretty heavily Azeri, so maybe that's a factor?

It seems like there are a lot of ethnic minorities up there.

[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...

[minionofmidas]

The far north-east (Kars, Ardahan, Artvin, Iğdır) seems to be leaning more to the CHP (also MHP and in the past DSP and DYP) than neighboring regions. Any reason for that? Armenia?

Yeah, that's a strange one. Iğdır at least is pretty heavily Azeri, so maybe that's a factor?

It seems like there are a lot of ethnic minorities up there.

Nah, it's the others. The settlers replacing the driven-out minorities (who usually were driven out from elsewhere themselves). Exactly as on the west coast. Much as these kinds of peoples vote in most other countries in the world. Shrug.

[Хahar 🤔]

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...

What does this have to do with Turkey?

[Famous Mortimer]

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...

What does this have to do with Turkey?

He was comparing Jewish outside Israel to Turkish voters outside Turkey. It was perfectly reasonable. Why did it make you upset but you didn't get upset about the comparison to Indian voters? Come down off your cross.

[ObserverIE]

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 (given the recent collapse in FF's political standing I presume that the latter part of that is no longer true... but we can be fairly sure that they don't back Irish Labour, lol).

FWIW, local emigrants to England of my experience tended to map (FF/I Lab) -> GB Lab, FG -> Con (not that there would ever have been many Irish Labour voters in north Longford/south Cavan). FF tended to be economically more to the left than FG was, so it's not that sizeable a leap.

[RogueBeaver]

Davutoglu to succeed Erdogan as PM.

[Velasco]

Vote shifts between the March local elections and the August presidential election. 28% of MHP voters shifted to Erdogan.

Sources: http://cilekagaci.com/  (Turk)

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/explained-turkeys-presidential-election-results-in-a-nutshell.aspx?pageID=238&nID=70588&NewsCatID=338 (Eng)

[Nhoj]

CHP is holding a special leadership election.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Republican_People%27s_Party_Convention

[swl]

Vote shifts between the March local elections and the August presidential election. 28% of MHP voters shifted to Erdogan.

Nice graph.

If the MHP happens to disappear soon as the article suggests I guess it would be a great news for everyone.

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[Velasco]

There's an IPSOS post-election survey. My comprehension of Turkish language equals zero, but Demirtas' voters -considering the last local elections- seem to come from:

HDP-BDP 76%, AKP 9%, CHP 7%, MHP 1%, Others 7%.

http://www.cnnturk.com/fotogaleri/turkiye/ipsos-cumhurbaskanligi-secimi-sandik-sonrasi-arastirmasi?page=28

Note that Demirtas does pretty well with abstainers in the graph, better than the other two candidates.

[swl]

If you want some opinion on Davutoglu:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/ascent-turkey-ahmet-davutoglu-201491134555729882.html

[Velasco]

If you want some opinion on Davutoglu:

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/09/ascent-turkey-ahmet-davutoglu-201491134555729882.html

Quite interesting. On what the author considers one of his main mistakes (Syria), the surge of ISIS has had the consequence of a de facto alliance between Turkey and the KRG (the Kurdish regional authority in northern Iraq).

I've read this article on Davutoglu the other day. It's a bit old (2009), but it provides a couple of clues on the principles behind Turkey's foreign policy (the 'strategic depth'). It's clear that the man has his own ideas, albeit Erdogan has (ahem) a strong personality.

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=34754#.VAcWGsJ5NOI