Erdogan second only to Ataturk now:

[General Duke]

 

ANALYSIS / Victory in Turkey referendum makes Erdogan second only to Ataturk

 

By Alon Liel

 

This is the fourth time Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has savored victory in a national ballot. Twice he won general elections, twice in referenda. He is a perennial "winner," even if we in Israel are largely united in our distaste for him.

 

Yesterday, voters overwhelmingly approved the referendum initiated by Erdogan's Islamic-oriented Justice and Development Party. The constitutional measures passed give the government wide-ranging power to exert control over the military and judiciary, both traditional bulwarks of the country's secularism.

 

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference at the international airport in Santiago, Monday May 31, 2010.

 

Photo by: AP

 

The referendum result is a triumph for Erdogan's ideology. It's hard to imagine the heads of Turkey's army plotting another coup, given that the reforms now allow them to be tried in civilian court, or the country's high court banning certain political parties as it has in the past.

 

Erdogan can now look both forward and back with satisfaction. He has made his country richer, more stable and stronger in the international community, while simultaneously making it both more democratic and more devout.

 

Should Erdogan prevail in the July 2011 election - a legitimate prospect after yesterday's victory - he will become the longest-serving, and most influential, Turkish leader since Kemal Ataturk.

 

The reforms passed yesterday overturn eight decades of government-touted secular ideology, instilling instead a new political creed that could rightfully be termed Erdoganism. And a leader doesn't have an "ism" attached to his name simply by toeing his predecessors' line.

 

Many in Turkey and abroad view Turkey's transformation - more religious, more eastward-looking - as cause for concern. But to the majority of Turks, the reforms have made the republic more democratic, more humane.

 

Erdogan will remain hated by the Turkish secular elite, which is concentrated in the army, universities and business community. But he is beloved by Turkey's poorer, devout periphery. The prime minister has straightened the backbone of the marginalized, and in return has received their undying loyalty.

 

Fears that Erdogan will turn the country into an Iranian-style Islamic republic are unfounded. Support for the prime minister rests not only on ideology but also on modernization and the prosperity he has helped bring.

 

We in Israel know Erdogan primarily for his hard-line Mideast policy, less so for his economic platform. But the prime minister's every step is taken with fiscal growth in mind. Erdogan will abandon neither modernization nor democracy, the system allowing his government to stay in power.

 

The prime minister must now meet one major objective to justify the "ism" that has been appended to his name: Create a Kurdish state, or at least recognize Turkey's Kurds as a national minority.

 

Erdogan is ripe for it, but his country is not. He needs one more term to complete his Kurdish mission. Should he win next July, that may be a real possibility.

[General Duke]

Reuters) - Turkish shares .XU100 hit a fresh all-time high on Monday, rising 2.14 percent to 61,905 points after Turkey gave its support to government-backed reforms in a referendum, in a boost for the ruling AK Party.

 

Investors welcomed a much higher-than-expected "yes" vote of 58 percent as signalling a strong chance of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan winning an election due next year outright.

 

[General Duke]

 

The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, headquarters in Istanbul, a new and eye-catching building in the modest neighborhood of Halıcıoğlu, greeted the referendum results with fanfare Sunday evening.

 

Thousands of party activists and supporters started gathering in and around the building at 5 p.m., when the polls closed and ballot counting began. With every new result relayed through the AKP’s own network, and later from live televised counts, the crowd grew happier and happier.

 

“We knew we would get a ‘yes’ victory, but these results are even beyond my expectations,” said Metin Develi, 29, a kebab restaurant owner from the Istanbul district of Güneşli. He and his friends had spent the weeks leading up to the referendum putting up “yes” flags and posters in various neighborhoods around Istanbul. “I have been closing my shop at midnight and going out to work for the party until dawn. And now I feel so happy.”

 

AKP supporters see the “yes” vote as a vote of confidence in their incumbent party. “The whole opposition united behind the “no” vote,” said Cemal Tekin, 23, who works at a supermarket in Halıcıoğlu. “But these results show that the nation loves Tayyip Bey.”

 

“We trust the people, that’s our difference,” said another man in the crowd. “The opposition has never understood that.”

 

“Tayyip Bey” is almost omnipresent here, as his smiling photos welcome visitors with giant “yes” slogans plastered on them. The building is modern and has the feeling of a business plaza and the people here are from all walks of life. Most are men, fewer are women wearing headscarves, while even fewer are women not wearing headscarves.

 

“I don’t ever fear religious bigotry in Turkey,” said uncovered Necla Temel, 28. “Look, there are all sorts of people here; all kinds. This party represents the whole of Turkey.”

 

As the sponsors of the proposed constitutional amendments, the AKP was the only major party promoting a “yes” vote in Sunday’s referendum. The other two parties to support the changes were the Islamist Saadet (Felicity) Party and the Islamic-nationalist Grand Union Party, however the total votes these two parties attract in general elections is no more than 7 percent.

 

“This either shows that our support in society is more than 50 percent now,” said an AKP official off the record. The other alternative is that some supporters of other parties, most notably the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, along with some liberals and leftists, also said “yes,” he said. “Both explanations are good,” he said.

 

As of 7 p.m., the happy crowd was waiting for the speech Prime Minister Erdoğan was expected to make later in the night. “He is the leader of Turkey,” said Necla Temel. “Look, he changed the Constitution despite all that opposition.”

[General Duke]

[General Duke]

Erdogan pulls it off

 

Sep 13th 2010, 9:26 by The Economist | ISTANBUL

 

TURKEY’S mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party has won a ringing endorsement from voters in a bitterly contested referendum on constitutional changes that are poised to raise democratic standards and further erode the powers of the country’s once omnipotent generals.

 

Final results show that 58% of Turks approved the government's proposed changes to the constitution, which was written by the army after it overthrew the government in 1980. Both government and opposition leaders cast the referendum as a vote of confidence in the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mr Erdogan's AK party has governed Turkey since 2002, when it catapulted to single-party rule on a platform of democratic reform and market liberalisation.

 

Sunday’s result signals continued support for AK in the run-up to nationwide parliamentary elections that must be held by next June. There is widespread speculation that, should AK replicate yesterday’s success in the national poll, Mr Erdogan will push to elevate himself to the presidency when it becomes vacant in 2012.

 

The EU has welcomed the constitutional changes, which, among other things, make it possible for coup plotters to be tried henceforth in civilian courts. Yet the opposition, led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the newly elected leader of the pro-secular Republican People’s party (CHP), has sought to portray the amendments as a final assault against the secular order introduced by the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk. The package includes measures to bar gender discrimination, bolster civil liberties and protect personal privacy. But these, the opposition charges, were no more than “bubble wrap” used to conceal more invidious changes.

 

The core of the package is a major overhaul of the judiciary. This gives the president and parliament greater say over the appointments of senior judges and prosecutors, and expands the size of the constitutional court and that of the judicial body in charge of appointments. The opposition claims AK will use the changes to pack the courts with Islamists, paving the way to religious rule. Some mutter darkly about an impending “civilian coup”.

 

Such fears are exaggerated. And there is scant evidence that AK has used its time in office to subvert secularism. Yet the 42% of Turks who voted against the package will have only had their concerns deepened by Mr Erdogan’s autocratic tone. During the referendum campaign he accused those opposed to the package of being “in favour of army coups” and went as far as to warn that they would be “eliminated”.

 

Maps depicting the pattern of voting in yesterday's referendum show a deeply fragmented country. Those voting for the package were concentrated in a slim crescent ringing the country’s prosperous western and south-western shores. In Istanbul, the country’s largest city, the trend was close to that nationwide, with 55% in favour and 45% against. The nationalist oppostion, led by Devlet Bahceli, took the biggest bashing of all, with voters in Mr Bahceli's native province of Osmaniye supporting the package.

 

In a bid to assuage the naysayers, Mr Erdogan declared in his victory speech that those who voted against the package were "worthy of respect too”. But pro-secular urbanites remain unswayed. After his speech Mr Erdogan and the president, Abdullah Gul, showed up at the final of the world basketball championship in Istanbul, which pitted Turkey against America. They were greeted with loud boos.

 

In newsrooms in Istanbul, downhearted pro-secular editors joked darkly about moving to Izmir, where "no" votes prevailed. But elsewhere the mood was festive. A coalition of leftists and liberals who campaigned in favour of the package were gearing up to press charges against Kenan Evren, the general who led the 1980 coup. In the aftermath of the overthrow of the government, over half a million Turks were arrested and tortured, and 51 executed by hanging. Sunday’s result paves the way for the prosecution of the generals responsible.

 

Despite his resounding victory, Mr Erdogan cannot afford to be complacent. Kurdish voters in the country’s restive south-east provinces largely complied with orders from the largest pro-Kurdish party, Peace and Democracy (BDP), to boycott the referendum on the ground that it failed to address their demands for greater political and cultural autonomy. This in turn points to the enduring power of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been engaged in an armed struggle for autonomy for the past 26 years and with which the BDP is closely allied. The PKK has threatened to call off its recently declared unilateral ceasefire unless Mr Erdogan moves on Kurdish rights. This in turn points to the fact that so long as the Kurdish problem remains unresolved, democracy in Turkey will rest on fragile foundations.

[nemo]

Good on Turkey there was something I always liked about them..their patriotism and now coupled with deen and the sky is the limit!