4 ms·
Vast majority my arse. Erdogan won the last election in 2014 with less than 52% of the vote [1] on less than 75% turnout and he has only been so successful in h
by akiselev 10y ago
Vast majority my arse. Erdogan won the last election in 2014 with less than 52% of the vote [1] on less than 75% turnout and he has only been so successful in his career because of a quirk of demographics. Turkey has been slower than other countries in urbanization and the rural Islamic majority has used their very slim majority to wipe out democracy and institute their policies at the expense of the urban secular minority. Just look at the distribution of protests in the country and you see a very clear pattern: the cities are very different from the rest of the country.
Putin is someone who has the support of the vast majority of his constituents, even despite the hardships and corruption, while Erdogan is just another opportunistic authoritarian who abused a faulty system to become a "democratically elected" dictator. In the eyes of much of the rest of the world, he has no legitimacy and is a pariah whose only leverage is the migrant crisis and the conflict with ISIS.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_presidential_election,_2014 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_presidential_electio...
- linkregister 10y ago52% of the vote on 75% turnout is fantastic. When's the last time an American president was voted in on such a mandate?
- akiselev 10y agoThe United States doesn't have compulsory voting like Turkey does. Australia, another country with compulsory voting (although much better enforced), regularly sees elections with over 90-95% turnout. That is a real democratic mandate.
- linkregister 10y agoThanks for the information; I was unaware that Turkey has compulsory voting. Is there a credible opposition party to AKP, or a smattering of smaller parties?
- akiselev 10y agoThere is a long list of opposition parties in Turkey but few of them have any power [1]. The main opposition party with about a quarter of MPs (vast majority representing urban districts) is the Republican People's Party, which was the first political party in Turkey post WWI as well as the one led by Ataturk during his secular revolution. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Turkey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_T...
- afsina 10y agoVast majority was against the coup. That is for sure.
- afsina 10y agoIn the Last election Erdogan's `party` had 49.5% of votes with %85.18 turnout.