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An unestbalished political conformity : Elections in Turkey
Highlights
Turkeys political over-line is a subject interlinked with economic and geo-societal perceptional variances that are predominant in the Middle east and Europe. Turkey has its own historical significance which clearly directs a tiled way for a healthy diplomatic tie up with the Arab world as well as the Europe. As any democratic republic nation, Turkey too has its own political diversity that has been changed with time, relatively bracketed under the shadow of socio-political evolution.
Turkeys political over-line is a subject interlinked with economic and geo-societal perceptional variances that are predominant in the Middle east and Europe. Turkey has its own historical significance which clearly directs a tiled way for a healthy diplomatic tie up with the Arab world as well as the Europe. As any democratic republic nation, Turkey too has its own political diversity that has been changed with time, relatively bracketed under the shadow of socio-political evolution.
An evident essence of Islamism in the country is purely a theological progression that happened under the Ottoman Empire and the aftermaths of Ottoman Wahabi War also perchance added up to the progressed changes. It is to be highlighted that Turkish leaders have perused their democratic system with aptness of pre-historical significance and appealed to the regions historic Multiculturalism and multiconfessionalism correcting the Western misconceptions about Middle Eastern culture developed with an orientalist prejudice.
Turkeys democracy fails to recognize all the ethnic groups within the country but it is a knot of trust for people to establish a power of unity taking up their choice.
The preliminary results after Turkey elections suggests that Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 13 year old Justice and Development party or AKP won polls but surprisingly lost simple majority in the Parliament. According to the analysts the outcome of the recent elections, thwarted Erdogan's hopes of introducing constitutional changes that would concentrate more powers in an executive presidency. The Justice and Development Party , which had governed Turkey since 2002, lost their parliamentary majority while remaining as the largest party for their fourth consecutive general election.
Winning 258 seats with 40.9% of the vote, the party failed to meet their target of 330 seats and fell well short of President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's personal target of 400 MPs. The Republican People's Party (CHP) remained as the second largest party, faring below their 2011 election performance by winning 25.0% of the vote and 132 seats.
The campaigning focused more on the instable economical fluctuations of the country and AKP’s foreign policies in Syria linked with Turkeys Iranian allies that aided Bashar al Assad. The campaigns also highly criticized Erdogan’s government taking up the issues related to corruption and Party’s perpetual disregard for women’s right. President Erdogans £400 million palace was an opprobrium of being authoritative and corrupt as per the campaigning reverberations by the opposition.
The political arena of Turkey often faces a consequential ideological war between the AKP and CHP. Though CHP is one of the oldest political parties of the country cited as “the founding party of modern turkey”, AKP established its influence with a notion of sensationalistic political reformism intact with culture and tradition in 13 years.
AKP’s political motive is often regarded as conservative in nature. The party undeniably has a sentiment to consolidate and sustain an Islamic democracy within the state coupled with Neo- ottoman political stands in order to preserve the culture and traditions from the ottoman ancestors. Politically the party is seen to be a strong right wing or center right ( depends upon the relative comparison ) .
And perhaps to strengthen the party ideologies and its scope for stabilizing the ideological currents , Erdogans government took high handed decisions regarding tighter regulations on internet use, abortion and alcohol consumption, temporarily blocked access toTwitter and YouTube in March 2014. While on one hand the party behaves as any other strong right-winged orthodox party , on the other hand the party has been growingly accused of crony-capitalism and other corruption charges linked with a strong criticism of harsh authoritarianism.
The Republican People’s Party or CHP is the main opposition in the Grand National Assembly. Being the oldest party, it has its own vitality in an ideological or historical context .The party declares itself as a Social – Democratic Party labeling a center-left political position. The evolutions brought by the party have been tagged as a Pro-Europe qualitative shift differing from the Islamist ideologies. The idea of Kemalism and its traditional gravity in a socio-political link has been a major objective of evolved bases of the Party. Kemalism developed during the late Ottoman Empire under various reforms and was implemented by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The idea brought in distinct political, social, cultural and religious reforms to separate the new Turkish state from its Ottoman predecessor and embrace a Westernized way of living. Kemalism also establishes democracy and civil and political equality for women. Since the party believes in populism and republicanism, a chronic ideological clash with AKP’s outlook can be observed under the veil of sociological differences. Populism as per Kemalist thoughts gives way for the best interest of general public and believed in re-constructing the states primitive ideas of Ottoman autocracy and culturally prevailed theocracy and feudalism , voicing and directing Laicisim.
Turkey has the highest population of Kurds with 14.5 million Kurds residing within the state. The parliamentary election results marked the start of a new era for Abdul Vahap and other members of Turkey's largest ethnic minority, with the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) securing 13.12 percent of the vote, more than the set threshold of 10 percent, to enter parliament for the first time. When the ideological clash between CHP and AKP happens in a political arena which is culturally motivated with much relevance and impact, ethnic groups find a way to voice their stands for a better recognition.
The paralyzed diplomatic relations of neighboring countries like Iraq and Syria because of the ongoing terror attacks within the states add up to a concern of soico-economic backing that can be misleadingly interpretive in International affairs. The result of this election perhaps can bring in a lot of change considering the power the opposition has and the recognition of Kurds in the GNA directing a change in constitutional policies and a vigilant role in Middle Eastern politics.
The mutual trust between Europe and other Western countries should be continued regardless of the political notions since the voices and choices from history direct it well. When the elections come to a conclusion in Turkey, the dominant relation between Power , People and Independent Politics often becomes inexplicable in nature.
Nadeem Ahmed
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