11 ms·

Erdogan Promises to Transfer Power Peacefully If He Loses Ballot

b1ue64 3y ago
Transfer of power only matters in a free and fair election
- krastanov 3y ago
  On the contrary, these things are on a spectrum. In many places elections are not fair, but they are also not completely controlled either -- e.g. someone can bias the election results in their favor by 10 percentage points but still lose if something happened recently that caused their support to drop by 30 percentage points. That is the reality in many places (and that type of unfair biasing happens in bastions of democracy in the West too, e.g. gerrymandering). The peaceful transfer of power is much more crucial than the election being *perfectly* fair (because we hardly have perfectly fair elections -- "mostly" fair and "well representative" is what we can hope for most of the time).
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    To add on to krastonov's explaination, to help ensure peaceful transitions of power, lots of younger democracies like South Korea will give outgoing presidents a blanket pardon of any crimes. That way, you don't have an incentive to pull a Netenyahu and Obran and constantly try to remain in power to maintain criminal immunity.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  The elections themselves in Turkey are free and fair enough. It is the campaign part that isn't. Things happen but it's nowhere like Russia for example, the civil society is very active and the turnout fluctuates between 80% to 90%. So the vote count will be correct eventually even though someone can try something. There are some suspicions about the integrity of races with very small margins but overall the results are the results which people voted for.
paganre 3y ago
this is good to hear, but a little bit hard to believe. back in 2019, local elections in Istanbul was annulled by the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) without any real basis [1]. thankfully voters showed up in larger numbers and the opposition won with a greater margin. opinion polls show razor thin margins right now and if the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu wins it will unlikely be by a landslide. like everyone, I would love to see a peaceful transfer of power, but a lot is at stake for Erdogan and his government. I am sure he will not be conceding immediately and he has a lot of influence over any judicial institution in the country. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2019_Istanbul_mayoral_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2019_Istanbul_mayoral_el...
- mrwnmonm 3y ago
  [flagged]
- ianai 3y ago
  How long should we expect for results?
  - ayhanfuat 3y ago
    It should be clear in 24-28 hours from now.
aaronbrethorst 3y ago
Good thing that free speech advocate Elon Musk is in charge at Twitter, so that that platform can offer the people of Turkey an unvarnished look at Erdogan's flaws /s https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1657411486380093442 https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1657411486380093442
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Some interesting context here: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 Turkey is presumably making a legal demand. So Twitter's choices are censor a handful of individuals in Turkey or have Turkey block Twitter for everybody. The thing that will be interesting is Twitter posting the demand from Turkey. If this is normalized, it would be another great step forward in transparency for Twitter. It'd be similar to how Google publishes DMCA takedown requests to LumenDatabase.org.
  - aaronbrethorst 3y ago
    'I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend until it may have monetary consequences for me your right to say it.' - Elon, presumably
  - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
    They choose to do that a lot when it comes to foreign governments. North Korea could in theory send such "legal" demands if they allowed Twitter in the country. Actually a big reason for why Musk & co claimed they had to rescue Twitter was because the US government too made such demands to the previous owners and they censored American citizens under very questionable circumstances, including scientists. So at what point does it turn into complicity? And why should censorship of Turks be more acceptable than that of others? If Erdogan wants to go full dictator let him shut down Twitter. Whose side is Musk on?
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      You're absolutely right that North Korea could make the exact same demands if they allowed Twitter, and Twitter would find itself in the same situation. In fact this has already happened with the EU leadership as well, who have plentiful censorship laws to exploit, and were being publicly flexed. Some deal was eventually made there; it's quite unfortunate it was not publicly elaborated upon. But in any case, this is nothing at all like what happened with the US. The US government did not make legal demands, as doing so which would have run into the First Amendment, but instead made 'suggestions' in back channels, which Twitter voluntarily chose to both abide and keep secret, even when they fully recognized it was being abused. There would have been no legal justification for doing anything to Twitter had these 'suggestions' been completely ignored. So Twitter's behavior was entirely on them. As for "sides", after Twitter's decision 99.999% (or whatever absurd decimal it ends up as) of Turkey will retain full direct access to Twitter, instead of 0%. I doubt many of them will be thrilled about these events, and can now freely express that, Streisand effect and all. I don't think he's on the side of the people nor the government of Turkey, but rather he's simply doing what he can to enable the most people to be able to express themselves.
Takennickname 3y ago
[flagged]
- SeanLuke 3y ago
  Nope. It just means that Erdogan knows that the outcome will be in his favor.
- throwaway743 3y ago
  Eh this is coming from the guy who potentially staged a coup against himself in a power grab
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  by what metric specifically?
  - fauxpause_ 3y ago
    Most inflation
- KoftaBob 3y ago
  Weak troll attempt
throwaway743 3y ago
And that's Erdogan saying that. Wouldn't be surprised if his "if" is supported by behind the scenes fuckery.
mastax 3y ago
He doesn't face prison if he loses, and he'd probably run again and have a good chance to win, depending on how it goes. I wouldn't bet on him not pulling funny business but it's not out of the question.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  He might very well face prison. Corruption allegations are in the scale of billions and these allegations are all done by his ex partners. The evidence is patchy but some allegations are very credible. We even had video records and phone records collected by the police but he got away because those who collected these records were connected to a religious cult which is very unpopular among the population and suspected of covert political actions since decades. That said, some evidence is too hard to ignore. For example, there's the case of a bank CEO who was caught with millions of dollars in shoeboxes at his home, in connection with the Erdogan alegations. He was handed back the money and left alone on camera. There are huge number of people with grievances towards Erdogan, the population wouldn't be satisfied if Erdogan doesn't face some justice. He accumulated so much hate during his tenure and he and his family become incredibly rich when huge number of people suffered. It's not going to be a finished business without getting tried on these things.
  - akudha 3y ago
    In case of high profile people it is often not the lack of evidence, it is the lack of will to prosecute them. Apart from some fines, has Trump faced any consequence, ever? There is enough evidence against him to fill a warehouse. I hope Erdogan gets voted out and faces consequences for the crap he pulled, I am skeptical though
    - rsynnott 3y ago
      The US does seem particularly skittish about prosecuting naughty politicians, tho.
      - akudha 3y ago
mrtksn 3y ago
Nevertheless, it doesn't mean he wouldn't try to keep power. He said "we will accept defeat as we did in the Istanbul elections" but in those elections he managed to cancel the election by claiming that the ballot for the mayor was stolen when the ballot for the council was not. How convenient, since his party won the council. Both of the ballots are voted together and put in the same envelope but somehow only one of the votes was stolen. Anyway, before the election re-run they paid out the outstanding sums to the contractors close to them, they hired large number of supporters and did other arrangements. The elected mayor tried to backup the IT systems before being removed and was accused with espionage. The interior ministry recently said that the mayors in the Kurdish regions were swiftly removed upon Erdogan's request. Officially, they are removed due to terror allegations. The same guy was trying to have police force present at the election locations and doing parallel counting but thankfully the elections committee denied his request(legally, the police are not allowed more than 100 meters to the ballots unless their help is requested). Anyway, if the results are close I wouldn't trust Erdogan to step down easily. His whole election campaign revolves around the premise that the opposition are bunch of traitors and terrorist(in literal sense. In his rallies he plays clips of the opposition with literal terrorist edited in), I don't know how he will explain to his base leaving the power to "traitors" and "terrorists".
- radu_floricica 3y ago
  Isn't that a promise NOT to accept the result? The mayor is currently convicted to prison time for a triviality - not sure if he's actually in prison or still fighting the appeal.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    The current mayor who had to win the elections twice is convicted to 2 years, 7 month and 15 days of prison for insulting public officials. Essentially, when answering a question he said "those who canceled the elections are idiots" and in the context of the question he doesn't mean the people he is accused of insulting and the ruling was criticised even by many Erdogan supporters. He was expected to be the candidate for president because he is very poplar but because his sentence is longer than 2 years, once the ruling is approved(the appeal is still being reviewed by the higher court) he will have to leave his public office and go to prison.
password54321 3y ago
Erdogan has probably one of the hardest presidential jobs as he has to balance relations between the west and the east while being a target for holding on to Islamic traditions. Yet at the same time he continues to be able keep NATO following his demands and being the most effective mediator between Russia and Europe. With that said he will likely have the majority vote no matter what the western media tells you, and the negative press by the west is only giving the opposite affect to many Turkish citizens.
- kramerger 3y ago
  Have you seen the Turkish economy lately? It has always been a struggling, but what kind of leader drives a country right into 80% inflation?? Turkey is important for NATO only because of where on the map it is. I don't think he can take credit for that.
- throwgdfdfdd 3y ago
  Don‘t forget about stealing and firing any central banker who wants to increase interests rates to combat 80% (official) inflation. He fired how many, 7-8 central bankers. I predict the state pollster will report, like on every election, the most favorable regions first, to dissuade people from voting. If on this election Erdogan does not lose I pity the future of Turkey.
  - retinaros 3y ago
    can you show us how interest rates rising helped citizen in the world? its a ponzi and he is right. turkey is victim of currency manipulation not interest rates. and in some ways most of the world is victim of the same currency manipulation where someone holds the world hostage by printing dollar while other countries can’t do same
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tpmx 3y ago
I'm highly invested in Erdogan losing this election since I live in Sweden and this basically decides if we get to join the NATO and its nuclear umbrella or not. (Erdogan's opposition has made it clear that they want us in - awesome.) That said: I'm not sure there's much point in debating what Erdogan might do if he loses.
- Jun8 3y ago
  This is one of the points that is a bit complex: AFAIK there is large bi-partisan opposition against Sweden's Nato entry in the Turkish public opinion (for a variety of right or wrong reasons), so the issue is not just with the AKP base. I think there was some news that Ünal Çeviköz, Kilicdaroglu's (opposition leader) foreign policy advisor, has sent signals that were optimistic. Additionally, it may be easier for US and EU to put pressure on the new government for approval.
  - tpmx 3y ago
    Sigh. I guess we'll have to build nukes (again, sort of). And a delivery mechanism (again, sort of).
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      That would prevent NATO from allowing Sweden from ever joining, as well as pushback from the EU (there goes the Iran Nuclear Deal). It could be done in the same way that Taiwan, Japan, and SK have clandestine nuclear programs, but the easier thing to do might be to just deport people who fundraise for the PKK (who are pretty fucking terrible tbh - there's a reason they're still banned in most western countries). It would also be a massive feather in the CHP's hat, neutralize a major reason why Turkey began buying weapons from Russia, and neutralize a major reason people have supported the AKP. This whole PKK shitshow is Obama+Trump's fault btw - they both wanted a quick win against IS in Syria while also not using American troops. The only solution was the PKK's Syrian branch - the YPG. There was a whole US lead rebranding of the YPG in the 2014-2018 period specifically for this reason [0][1] > Thomas said he made the Turkish concerns known to the YPG back in 2015. “We literally played back to them: ‘You have got to change your brand. What do you want to call yourselves besides the YPG?’ With about a day’s notice they declared that they are the Syrian Democratic Forces.” “I thought it was a stroke of brilliance to put democracy in there somewhere. But it gave them a little bit of credibility.” [0] [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-ypg/u-s-general-told-syrias-ypg-you-have-got-to-change-your-brand-idUSKBN1A62SS https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-ypg/u-... [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/09/the-us-played-down-turkeys-concerns-about-syrian-kurdish-forces-that-couldnt-last/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/09/t...
exabrial 3y ago
Some GeoPolitlcal context: * If you don't know about Erdogan, theres too much for a HN thread. * The 1936 Montreux Convention allows Turkey to deny any country at war (not with Turkey) to deny warship passage, except to return home. * Turkey is an incredibly important part of NATO because of their ability to choke Black Sea access. * This has kept Russia's warm warm navy in check, particularly for the Ukraine conflict * NATO requires Democracy and "Rule of Law" for member nations * NATO has never had to remove a member state, and honestly nobody is sure how that'd happen * The US leases airbases in Turkey, with nuclear penetration bombers and nuclear warheads stored on site. * Russia has always seen this as a double standard when the US complains about Russia putting nukes in places like Belarus. * Trump denied Turkey access to the F-35 program because they chose to install S400 systems from Russia. * Credit due were credit due, military analysts generally agree this was a good decision, and it was at the request of bi-partisan lawmakers. * The thought was Russia could profile F-35 fighter's radar returns somehow with S400 systems * This is _in spite_ of Turkey committing funds to the F-35 program, which to this date, said funds have not been returned to Turkey.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Seems strange to try to provide context to a story about Erdogan but mostly talk about NATO and Turkey as a nation. If you want to try to provide context, please do so, but try to keep it related to the topic at least.
  - exabrial 3y ago
    [flagged]
- harywilke 3y ago
  "* The US leases airbases in Turkey, with nuclear penetration bombers and nuclear warheads stored on site." My understanding is that the bombs are on site, but the bombers are not. This from 2019 by The Federation of American Scientists supports that view.[1] "The remaining 50 bombs are for use by US jets, even though Turkey never allowed the US Air Force to permanently base fighter-squadrons at Incirlik. Jets would have to fly in during a crisis to pick up the weapons or they would have to be shipped to other locations before use. As a result, the nuclear posture at Incirlik has been more a storage site than a fighter-bomber base during the past two decades." [1] https://fas.org/publication/nukes-out-of-turkey/ https://fas.org/publication/nukes-out-of-turkey/
darthrupert 3y ago
I genuinely don't understand why Erdogan is called a dictator in the west. He's not an ideal democratic leader, sure, but seems to be far from a dictator.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- esafak 3y ago
  There are existing measures of democracy. Do you dispute them or Turkey's ratings? https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2023 https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2023
  - mrwnmonm 3y ago
    [flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- parrellel 3y ago
  About the time you fake a coup to clean house, you start getting the despot label bandied about. That, the ethnic cleansing, the antidemocratic reforms, the arresting and forcing out critics and opponents. Dude's not the absolute bottom of the barrel among world leaders but he's definitely worked through enough of the autocracy bingo card.
  - darthrupert 3y ago
    Fake a coup? Tell me more.
- rurban 3y ago
  He is called Sultan in the west
- retinaros 3y ago
  well there is a clear difference. if you are someone like macron and give to the US everything including your companies, your banks, your assets, your army, then you can beat any kind of riots at home and be called a genius. if you are someone like erdogan where your country should go first and sometimes that means going against american interest well you will be a dictator. it is simple there isnt a country in the world that oppose american views and idea and is not ruled by a said dictator according to our press.
from 3y ago
Anybody else tired of hearing about the woes of the "opposition" in all these 2nd/3rd world countries? They're always framed by journalists as these heroic freedom fighters, uncorruptible, etc but in reality it seems like they just want the proceeds of looting to go to themselves and their party instead of the current people in power. Barrow may be a better than Jammeh in the Gambia but not by very much, Aung San Suu Kyi let the Rohingya genocide happen, Alpha Conde was supposed to bring "democracy" to Guinea but ignored term limits and killed a bunch of protestors, etc. Just a different cast of thieving fools.
- csomar 3y ago
  They ride on dissatisfaction. People in the West think that Erdogan is hated because he is a dictator. In reality, he has a strong base that he lost because the Lira (Turkish currency) fell too much. Sure some people don't like his conservative stance but most of Turkey is religious. The reality is that the opposition has little to offer in terms of economical success. They are already promising to kick out the Arabs which many of them are investors in order to rally national sentiments. It's kind of predictable how this will go. In a few years, Erdogan will be back to power.
- esafak 3y ago
  Don't lump countries together.
  - from 3y ago
    Is there any reason to think that this Kılıçdaroğlu guy is immune to the environment and all the pressures that create people like Erdogan? There are a million other examples of what I described above. Maybe he'll be different but I don't think there's any reason to assume he's anything special.
    - esafak 3y ago
      He's a known quantity, and he's anything but dictatorial. You couldn't find a softer candidate if you tried.
dkankalovich 3y ago
Yeah, sure. We have the same kind of guy in Belarus. Google "Belarus election 2020" - this is what possible for Turkey.
- rasz 3y ago
  Had. Officially Lukashenko is in hospital since yesterday, but rumors say he is dead for couple of days now - drank too much putin's tea it seems.
  - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    This seems like enormous news. Lukashenko is Europe’s last true dictator.
volvogradSaint 3y ago
Really? Even when soldiers rose up and overthrew him, he still clung to power. If even a bloody coup couldn't do it, what chance does an election have?
- ayhanfuat 3y ago
  Coup didn’t have support from the public.
  - retinaros 3y ago
    most of the western leaders waited to see how things were unfolding. Funny to compare the muteness of those leaders when macron right now is removing rioters from having a right to riot; beating them, and putting people who complain into jail with very little backfiring on the ww scene
- vertis 3y ago
  Let me see, legitimate election vs coup that the rest of the world condemned. You can doubt he'll behave correctly, but the Istanbul elections are a better example to cite.
arroz 3y ago
Why is this news worthy? Shouldn’t the opposite be news worthy? if he promises he won’t transfer power peacefully? Or if he tries to not transfer power after the election?
- blinding-streak 3y ago
  If you have to ask the question, it's newsworthy. Ergodan's all about shenanigans.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  That was my reaction: if you have to say it, you prove that the matter is at least open to question.
- retinaros 3y ago
  because the media clearly wants him to loose so they can put a pro nato guy at the head of turkey. erdogan is a loose end, too much a nationalist, not globalized enough like a macron or a sunak. we re talking about the head of a state that resisted the US, lived through a coup d’etat where the main suspect lives in USA. btw this Gulen guy (who’s ten times the fanatic that erdogan is) is clearly typical america playbook (just like ben laden was a cia asset, hussein as well) Im not even backing the guy but it is neither black or white. he did move things and developed turkey to an extent few leaders could have dreamt of
  - hgsgm 3y ago
    The coup was probably fake, and was followed by a political purge across government. Erdogan's staff violently attacked people in the US during his visit. Erdogan is supporting a radical religious takeover a secular state. He has a history of cancelling election when he doesn't like the result. He rules in the style of Trump, ignoring the law.
    - retinaros 3y ago
      unfortunately u right that he moved secular to religious (not radical…) and guess how he did it? by applying european law under the premise that it was for the best of turkey and mandated to enter the EU. turkish law was less lenient toward religious radicalism than the EU. that is how he removed the army from power by saying that europe forbade an army with political power. oh and it was forbiden in turkey to have the veil in public institution but thanks to europe erdogan used european laws and human watch laws from the west to allow it. so it is europe that allowed this radicalism to take root into turkey, destroying its failsafe. trump led usa to 0 war thank god he ignored the american tradition.
philipov 3y ago
Just like Porfirio Diaz promised to step down in his last election, right?
now 3y ago
Because that’s a thing that our leaders now have to promise in the democracies that we’re living in?

Transfer of power only matters in a free and fair election

krastanov 3y ago
On the contrary, these things are on a spectrum. In many places elections are not fair, but they are also not completely controlled either -- e.g. someone can bias the election results in their favor by 10 percentage points but still lose if something happened recently that caused their support to drop by 30 percentage points. That is the reality in many places (and that type of unfair biasing happens in bastions of democracy in the West too, e.g. gerrymandering). The peaceful transfer of power is much more crucial than the election being *perfectly* fair (because we hardly have perfectly fair elections -- "mostly" fair and "well representative" is what we can hope for most of the time).
- alephnerd 3y ago
  To add on to krastonov's explaination, to help ensure peaceful transitions of power, lots of younger democracies like South Korea will give outgoing presidents a blanket pardon of any crimes. That way, you don't have an incentive to pull a Netenyahu and Obran and constantly try to remain in power to maintain criminal immunity.
mrtksn 3y ago
The elections themselves in Turkey are free and fair enough. It is the campaign part that isn't. Things happen but it's nowhere like Russia for example, the civil society is very active and the turnout fluctuates between 80% to 90%. So the vote count will be correct eventually even though someone can try something. There are some suspicions about the integrity of races with very small margins but overall the results are the results which people voted for.

this is good to hear, but a little bit hard to believe. back in 2019, local elections in Istanbul was annulled by the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) without any real basis [1]. thankfully voters showed up in larger numbers and the opposition won with a greater margin. opinion polls show razor thin margins right now and if the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu wins it will unlikely be by a landslide. like everyone, I would love to see a peaceful transfer of power, but a lot is at stake for Erdogan and his government. I am sure he will not be conceding immediately and he has a lot of influence over any judicial institution in the country. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2019_Istanbul_mayoral_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2019_Istanbul_mayoral_el...

mrwnmonm 3y ago
[flagged]
ianai 3y ago
How long should we expect for results?
- ayhanfuat 3y ago
  It should be clear in 24-28 hours from now.

aaronbrethorst 3y ago

Good thing that free speech advocate Elon Musk is in charge at Twitter, so that that platform can offer the people of Turkey an unvarnished look at Erdogan's flaws /s https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1657411486380093442 https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1657411486380093442

somenameforme 3y ago
Some interesting context here: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 Turkey is presumably making a legal demand. So Twitter's choices are censor a handful of individuals in Turkey or have Turkey block Twitter for everybody. The thing that will be interesting is Twitter posting the demand from Turkey. If this is normalized, it would be another great step forward in transparency for Twitter. It'd be similar to how Google publishes DMCA takedown requests to LumenDatabase.org.
- aaronbrethorst 3y ago
  'I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend until it may have monetary consequences for me your right to say it.' - Elon, presumably
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  They choose to do that a lot when it comes to foreign governments. North Korea could in theory send such "legal" demands if they allowed Twitter in the country. Actually a big reason for why Musk & co claimed they had to rescue Twitter was because the US government too made such demands to the previous owners and they censored American citizens under very questionable circumstances, including scientists. So at what point does it turn into complicity? And why should censorship of Turks be more acceptable than that of others? If Erdogan wants to go full dictator let him shut down Twitter. Whose side is Musk on?
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    You're absolutely right that North Korea could make the exact same demands if they allowed Twitter, and Twitter would find itself in the same situation. In fact this has already happened with the EU leadership as well, who have plentiful censorship laws to exploit, and were being publicly flexed. Some deal was eventually made there; it's quite unfortunate it was not publicly elaborated upon. But in any case, this is nothing at all like what happened with the US. The US government did not make legal demands, as doing so which would have run into the First Amendment, but instead made 'suggestions' in back channels, which Twitter voluntarily chose to both abide and keep secret, even when they fully recognized it was being abused. There would have been no legal justification for doing anything to Twitter had these 'suggestions' been completely ignored. So Twitter's behavior was entirely on them. As for "sides", after Twitter's decision 99.999% (or whatever absurd decimal it ends up as) of Turkey will retain full direct access to Twitter, instead of 0%. I doubt many of them will be thrilled about these events, and can now freely express that, Streisand effect and all. I don't think he's on the side of the people nor the government of Turkey, but rather he's simply doing what he can to enable the most people to be able to express themselves.

Takennickname 3y ago

[flagged]

SeanLuke 3y ago
Nope. It just means that Erdogan knows that the outcome will be in his favor.
throwaway743 3y ago
Eh this is coming from the guy who potentially staged a coup against himself in a power grab
yieldcrv 3y ago
by what metric specifically?
- fauxpause_ 3y ago
  Most inflation
KoftaBob 3y ago
Weak troll attempt

throwaway743 3y ago

And that's Erdogan saying that. Wouldn't be surprised if his "if" is supported by behind the scenes fuckery.

mastax 3y ago

He doesn't face prison if he loses, and he'd probably run again and have a good chance to win, depending on how it goes. I wouldn't bet on him not pulling funny business but it's not out of the question.

mrtksn 3y ago
He might very well face prison. Corruption allegations are in the scale of billions and these allegations are all done by his ex partners. The evidence is patchy but some allegations are very credible. We even had video records and phone records collected by the police but he got away because those who collected these records were connected to a religious cult which is very unpopular among the population and suspected of covert political actions since decades. That said, some evidence is too hard to ignore. For example, there's the case of a bank CEO who was caught with millions of dollars in shoeboxes at his home, in connection with the Erdogan alegations. He was handed back the money and left alone on camera. There are huge number of people with grievances towards Erdogan, the population wouldn't be satisfied if Erdogan doesn't face some justice. He accumulated so much hate during his tenure and he and his family become incredibly rich when huge number of people suffered. It's not going to be a finished business without getting tried on these things.
- akudha 3y ago
  In case of high profile people it is often not the lack of evidence, it is the lack of will to prosecute them. Apart from some fines, has Trump faced any consequence, ever? There is enough evidence against him to fill a warehouse. I hope Erdogan gets voted out and faces consequences for the crap he pulled, I am skeptical though
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    The US does seem particularly skittish about prosecuting naughty politicians, tho.
    - akudha 3y ago

mrtksn 3y ago

Nevertheless, it doesn't mean he wouldn't try to keep power. He said "we will accept defeat as we did in the Istanbul elections" but in those elections he managed to cancel the election by claiming that the ballot for the mayor was stolen when the ballot for the council was not. How convenient, since his party won the council. Both of the ballots are voted together and put in the same envelope but somehow only one of the votes was stolen. Anyway, before the election re-run they paid out the outstanding sums to the contractors close to them, they hired large number of supporters and did other arrangements. The elected mayor tried to backup the IT systems before being removed and was accused with espionage. The interior ministry recently said that the mayors in the Kurdish regions were swiftly removed upon Erdogan's request. Officially, they are removed due to terror allegations. The same guy was trying to have police force present at the election locations and doing parallel counting but thankfully the elections committee denied his request(legally, the police are not allowed more than 100 meters to the ballots unless their help is requested). Anyway, if the results are close I wouldn't trust Erdogan to step down easily. His whole election campaign revolves around the premise that the opposition are bunch of traitors and terrorist(in literal sense. In his rallies he plays clips of the opposition with literal terrorist edited in), I don't know how he will explain to his base leaving the power to "traitors" and "terrorists".

radu_floricica 3y ago
Isn't that a promise NOT to accept the result? The mayor is currently convicted to prison time for a triviality - not sure if he's actually in prison or still fighting the appeal.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  The current mayor who had to win the elections twice is convicted to 2 years, 7 month and 15 days of prison for insulting public officials. Essentially, when answering a question he said "those who canceled the elections are idiots" and in the context of the question he doesn't mean the people he is accused of insulting and the ruling was criticised even by many Erdogan supporters. He was expected to be the candidate for president because he is very poplar but because his sentence is longer than 2 years, once the ruling is approved(the appeal is still being reviewed by the higher court) he will have to leave his public office and go to prison.

password54321 3y ago

Erdogan has probably one of the hardest presidential jobs as he has to balance relations between the west and the east while being a target for holding on to Islamic traditions. Yet at the same time he continues to be able keep NATO following his demands and being the most effective mediator between Russia and Europe. With that said he will likely have the majority vote no matter what the western media tells you, and the negative press by the west is only giving the opposite affect to many Turkish citizens.

kramerger 3y ago
Have you seen the Turkish economy lately? It has always been a struggling, but what kind of leader drives a country right into 80% inflation?? Turkey is important for NATO only because of where on the map it is. I don't think he can take credit for that.
throwgdfdfdd 3y ago
Don‘t forget about stealing and firing any central banker who wants to increase interests rates to combat 80% (official) inflation. He fired how many, 7-8 central bankers. I predict the state pollster will report, like on every election, the most favorable regions first, to dissuade people from voting. If on this election Erdogan does not lose I pity the future of Turkey.
- retinaros 3y ago
  can you show us how interest rates rising helped citizen in the world? its a ponzi and he is right. turkey is victim of currency manipulation not interest rates. and in some ways most of the world is victim of the same currency manipulation where someone holds the world hostage by printing dollar while other countries can’t do same
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tpmx 3y ago

I'm highly invested in Erdogan losing this election since I live in Sweden and this basically decides if we get to join the NATO and its nuclear umbrella or not. (Erdogan's opposition has made it clear that they want us in - awesome.) That said: I'm not sure there's much point in debating what Erdogan might do if he loses.

Jun8 3y ago
This is one of the points that is a bit complex: AFAIK there is large bi-partisan opposition against Sweden's Nato entry in the Turkish public opinion (for a variety of right or wrong reasons), so the issue is not just with the AKP base. I think there was some news that Ünal Çeviköz, Kilicdaroglu's (opposition leader) foreign policy advisor, has sent signals that were optimistic. Additionally, it may be easier for US and EU to put pressure on the new government for approval.
- tpmx 3y ago
  Sigh. I guess we'll have to build nukes (again, sort of). And a delivery mechanism (again, sort of).
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    That would prevent NATO from allowing Sweden from ever joining, as well as pushback from the EU (there goes the Iran Nuclear Deal). It could be done in the same way that Taiwan, Japan, and SK have clandestine nuclear programs, but the easier thing to do might be to just deport people who fundraise for the PKK (who are pretty fucking terrible tbh - there's a reason they're still banned in most western countries). It would also be a massive feather in the CHP's hat, neutralize a major reason why Turkey began buying weapons from Russia, and neutralize a major reason people have supported the AKP. This whole PKK shitshow is Obama+Trump's fault btw - they both wanted a quick win against IS in Syria while also not using American troops. The only solution was the PKK's Syrian branch - the YPG. There was a whole US lead rebranding of the YPG in the 2014-2018 period specifically for this reason [0][1] > Thomas said he made the Turkish concerns known to the YPG back in 2015. “We literally played back to them: ‘You have got to change your brand. What do you want to call yourselves besides the YPG?’ With about a day’s notice they declared that they are the Syrian Democratic Forces.” “I thought it was a stroke of brilliance to put democracy in there somewhere. But it gave them a little bit of credibility.” [0] [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-ypg/u-s-general-told-syrias-ypg-you-have-got-to-change-your-brand-idUSKBN1A62SS https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-ypg/u-... [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/09/the-us-played-down-turkeys-concerns-about-syrian-kurdish-forces-that-couldnt-last/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/09/t...

exabrial 3y ago

Some GeoPolitlcal context: * If you don't know about Erdogan, theres too much for a HN thread. * The 1936 Montreux Convention allows Turkey to deny any country at war (not with Turkey) to deny warship passage, except to return home. * Turkey is an incredibly important part of NATO because of their ability to choke Black Sea access. * This has kept Russia's warm warm navy in check, particularly for the Ukraine conflict * NATO requires Democracy and "Rule of Law" for member nations * NATO has never had to remove a member state, and honestly nobody is sure how that'd happen * The US leases airbases in Turkey, with nuclear penetration bombers and nuclear warheads stored on site. * Russia has always seen this as a double standard when the US complains about Russia putting nukes in places like Belarus. * Trump denied Turkey access to the F-35 program because they chose to install S400 systems from Russia. * Credit due were credit due, military analysts generally agree this was a good decision, and it was at the request of bi-partisan lawmakers. * The thought was Russia could profile F-35 fighter's radar returns somehow with S400 systems * This is _in spite_ of Turkey committing funds to the F-35 program, which to this date, said funds have not been returned to Turkey.

capableweb 3y ago
Seems strange to try to provide context to a story about Erdogan but mostly talk about NATO and Turkey as a nation. If you want to try to provide context, please do so, but try to keep it related to the topic at least.
- exabrial 3y ago
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harywilke 3y ago
"* The US leases airbases in Turkey, with nuclear penetration bombers and nuclear warheads stored on site." My understanding is that the bombs are on site, but the bombers are not. This from 2019 by The Federation of American Scientists supports that view.[1] "The remaining 50 bombs are for use by US jets, even though Turkey never allowed the US Air Force to permanently base fighter-squadrons at Incirlik. Jets would have to fly in during a crisis to pick up the weapons or they would have to be shipped to other locations before use. As a result, the nuclear posture at Incirlik has been more a storage site than a fighter-bomber base during the past two decades." [1] https://fas.org/publication/nukes-out-of-turkey/ https://fas.org/publication/nukes-out-of-turkey/

darthrupert 3y ago

I genuinely don't understand why Erdogan is called a dictator in the west. He's not an ideal democratic leader, sure, but seems to be far from a dictator.

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esafak 3y ago
There are existing measures of democracy. Do you dispute them or Turkey's ratings? https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2023 https://freedomhouse.org/country/turkey/freedom-world/2023
- mrwnmonm 3y ago
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parrellel 3y ago
About the time you fake a coup to clean house, you start getting the despot label bandied about. That, the ethnic cleansing, the antidemocratic reforms, the arresting and forcing out critics and opponents. Dude's not the absolute bottom of the barrel among world leaders but he's definitely worked through enough of the autocracy bingo card.
- darthrupert 3y ago
  Fake a coup? Tell me more.
rurban 3y ago
He is called Sultan in the west
retinaros 3y ago
well there is a clear difference. if you are someone like macron and give to the US everything including your companies, your banks, your assets, your army, then you can beat any kind of riots at home and be called a genius. if you are someone like erdogan where your country should go first and sometimes that means going against american interest well you will be a dictator. it is simple there isnt a country in the world that oppose american views and idea and is not ruled by a said dictator according to our press.

from 3y ago

Anybody else tired of hearing about the woes of the "opposition" in all these 2nd/3rd world countries? They're always framed by journalists as these heroic freedom fighters, uncorruptible, etc but in reality it seems like they just want the proceeds of looting to go to themselves and their party instead of the current people in power. Barrow may be a better than Jammeh in the Gambia but not by very much, Aung San Suu Kyi let the Rohingya genocide happen, Alpha Conde was supposed to bring "democracy" to Guinea but ignored term limits and killed a bunch of protestors, etc. Just a different cast of thieving fools.

csomar 3y ago
They ride on dissatisfaction. People in the West think that Erdogan is hated because he is a dictator. In reality, he has a strong base that he lost because the Lira (Turkish currency) fell too much. Sure some people don't like his conservative stance but most of Turkey is religious. The reality is that the opposition has little to offer in terms of economical success. They are already promising to kick out the Arabs which many of them are investors in order to rally national sentiments. It's kind of predictable how this will go. In a few years, Erdogan will be back to power.
esafak 3y ago
Don't lump countries together.
- from 3y ago
  Is there any reason to think that this Kılıçdaroğlu guy is immune to the environment and all the pressures that create people like Erdogan? There are a million other examples of what I described above. Maybe he'll be different but I don't think there's any reason to assume he's anything special.
  - esafak 3y ago
    He's a known quantity, and he's anything but dictatorial. You couldn't find a softer candidate if you tried.

dkankalovich 3y ago

Yeah, sure. We have the same kind of guy in Belarus. Google "Belarus election 2020" - this is what possible for Turkey.

rasz 3y ago
Had. Officially Lukashenko is in hospital since yesterday, but rumors say he is dead for couple of days now - drank too much putin's tea it seems.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  This seems like enormous news. Lukashenko is Europe’s last true dictator.

volvogradSaint 3y ago

Really? Even when soldiers rose up and overthrew him, he still clung to power. If even a bloody coup couldn't do it, what chance does an election have?

ayhanfuat 3y ago
Coup didn’t have support from the public.
- retinaros 3y ago
  most of the western leaders waited to see how things were unfolding. Funny to compare the muteness of those leaders when macron right now is removing rioters from having a right to riot; beating them, and putting people who complain into jail with very little backfiring on the ww scene
vertis 3y ago
Let me see, legitimate election vs coup that the rest of the world condemned. You can doubt he'll behave correctly, but the Istanbul elections are a better example to cite.

arroz 3y ago

Why is this news worthy? Shouldn’t the opposite be news worthy? if he promises he won’t transfer power peacefully? Or if he tries to not transfer power after the election?

blinding-streak 3y ago
If you have to ask the question, it's newsworthy. Ergodan's all about shenanigans.
denton-scratch 3y ago
That was my reaction: if you have to say it, you prove that the matter is at least open to question.
retinaros 3y ago
because the media clearly wants him to loose so they can put a pro nato guy at the head of turkey. erdogan is a loose end, too much a nationalist, not globalized enough like a macron or a sunak. we re talking about the head of a state that resisted the US, lived through a coup d’etat where the main suspect lives in USA. btw this Gulen guy (who’s ten times the fanatic that erdogan is) is clearly typical america playbook (just like ben laden was a cia asset, hussein as well) Im not even backing the guy but it is neither black or white. he did move things and developed turkey to an extent few leaders could have dreamt of
- hgsgm 3y ago
  The coup was probably fake, and was followed by a political purge across government. Erdogan's staff violently attacked people in the US during his visit. Erdogan is supporting a radical religious takeover a secular state. He has a history of cancelling election when he doesn't like the result. He rules in the style of Trump, ignoring the law.
  - retinaros 3y ago
    unfortunately u right that he moved secular to religious (not radical…) and guess how he did it? by applying european law under the premise that it was for the best of turkey and mandated to enter the EU. turkish law was less lenient toward religious radicalism than the EU. that is how he removed the army from power by saying that europe forbade an army with political power. oh and it was forbiden in turkey to have the veil in public institution but thanks to europe erdogan used european laws and human watch laws from the west to allow it. so it is europe that allowed this radicalism to take root into turkey, destroying its failsafe. trump led usa to 0 war thank god he ignored the american tradition.

philipov 3y ago

Just like Porfirio Diaz promised to step down in his last election, right?

now 3y ago

Because that’s a thing that our leaders now have to promise in the democracies that we’re living in?