News Scan – March 31st: Top bosses warn against polarization in Turkey

Top bosses warn against polarization

Turkey’s top business organization, the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TÜSİAD), has said political polarization in Turkey has reached “alarming levels,” holding politicians responsible for cooling down the tension.

“We hope all sides of politics will contribute to the establishment of a discourse and attitude that will annihilate the polarization that has reached to concerning levels lately,” TÜSİAD said in a statement released to welcome the local election results.

“Urgently and with a cross-party understanding, we should steer for reforms that will consolidate our democracy, economy and social structure, and we should accelerate the [Kurdish] resolution EU adaption processes,” the statement read.

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

Opposition: Election victory will not acquit PM, AK Party of corruption

Leaders and higher-ups from the opposition parties have agreed that the victory of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Sunday’s local polls will not acquit the party or its chairman — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — of corruption and bribery accusations.

Turkey went to the ballot box on Sunday to elect its mayors, members of provincial councils, district mayors, members of district councils and neighborhood heads, or muhtars. According to unofficial results, the AK Party won the race with roughly 44 percent of the vote, while the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) won some 26 percent, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) garnered around 18 percent and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) took about 4 percent. Prime Minister Erdoğan, before delivering his victory speech on Sunday night, greeted a huge crowd of supporters who gathered in front of AK Party headquarters with his family members, including his wife, Emine, daughters Sümeyye and Esra, son Bilal and son-in-law Berat Albayrak. Former EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış was also among the group.

The victory ceremony raised eyebrows as some of those figures were implicated in corruption and bribery as suggested in a number of voice recordings that were leaked prior to the elections. Bağış resigned in December of last year after claims emerged that he had received $1.5 million as a bribe from a foreign businessman. The prime minister’s preference to greet the crowd in front of the AK Party building together with those individuals came, according to many, as a veiled message that Sunday’s polls helped the prime minister, his AK Party, close family members and other government members who stand accused of irregularities to be acquitted of all charges leveled against them up to now.

TODAYS ZAMAN

Erdogan: political enemies will ‘pay the price’ (by Fehim TAŞTEKİN)

Though beleaguered by corruption accusations, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) remained true to style in the March 30 local elections, displaying its political mastery and power of manipulation. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who saw the polls as a means of vindicating himself from corruption accusations, appears to be declaring war on the Gulen movement.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan employed two tactics. First, he set the mood for municipal polls as that of a general election, transforming the ballot into a confidence vote for his government. He managed to channel the vote he had mustered in the 2011 general elections into the municipal polls. The AKP had garnered 38.8% in the 2009 municipal election and 49.8% in the 2011 general election. In the March 30 vote, support for the AKP exceeded 39% — the psychological threshold that Erdogan had set as a victory benchmark — reaching more than 43%.

The opposition compares the result with the last general election outcome and sees it as a setback for the AKP and thus as the beginning of the end for the party. The AKP, on the other hand, takes the previous municipal election result as a positive basis and argues it has received a strong vote of confidence.

The second tactic the AKP employed was to use the ballot box as a mechanism to clear itself from corruption accusations and get the opposition condemned. Erdogan had disabled the judiciary and the police ahead of the elections to thwart the corruption probes. He will now continue on his path, saying that “the people have acquitted him at the ballot box.”

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/turkey-akp-elections.html#ixzz2xZEX8l4n

Ballot box favors economic stability not PM Erdoğan

Unofficial results of the municipal polls suggest that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has achieved relative success, though not the victory of over 50 percent he was expecting, raising questions about the message sent by voters to Erdoğan and the message Erdoğan received from the results. The governing party managed to obtain 43.26 percent of the total vote in the local elections up from 38.8 percent in the 2009 local polls, of which a series of factors played a role in shaping the results.

As the government battles a sweeping corruption scandal that has implicated Erdoğan and his close associates, it seems that an ongoing graft investigation had no bearing on the electorate and their political choices, demonstrating that people voted in favor of political and economic stability.

Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, a professor of political science, noted that a relative stable economic atmosphere does not facilitate voters considering corruption allegations about the government, though people tend to review their preferences in cases of economic instability or crisis, referencing a scientific study in Eastern European countries.

“International studies have shown that people are inclined to opt for economic welfare in the face of corruption claims. But if the massive graft threatens the general welfare of society, then a counter-effect might be seen. Prior to the local elections, there was a failure to establish a link between the welfare of society and the corruption. The country could not discuss the corruption and welfare issues. If Turkey is faced with a financial crisis, then the issue of graft might come to the fore,” Kalaycıoğlu said.

TODAYS ZAMAN

31.03.2014

This is a news-scan from major Turkish papers and internet sites. However, we do not verify above stories neither do we vouch for their accuracy.