Erdogan wins, Europe is distant

The Islamic Conservative Party AKP won with 45.6% – only 4 per cent less compared to the previous national elections in 2011 – against 28.2% of its opponent: the Republican People’s Party (CHP), in the local elections of March 30 called by Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party kept control over Istanbul, where live a fifth of the Country’s voters, and over the capital, Ankara. The outcomes of the polls bring a more “Islamic” Turkey, according to many international observers a more authoritarian, less democratic, and certainly more distant from Europe, while preserving a strategic role for the order and the stability of the Middle-Eastern macro region, bordering on Asia and Mediterranean Europe. Among suspicions and venom. Over 52 million citizens were called to the polls for the new local elections. The Country reached this day in a climate of tension, suspicion, venom with no holds barred, after the tragic repression of the revolt of Taksim, the corruption scandal that broke out December 17, with charges of corruption at all levels, phone tapping that allegedly frame the Premier and his son, threats of purging the country of hostile magistrates and policemen, the latest revelations on supposed military intervention plans “provoked” in Syria. According to the recordings of conversations between Turkish leaders – that include foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the head of the secret services Hakan Fidan and the vice-Chief of Staff Yasar Guler – uploaded on Youtube on March 27, Fidan suggested to send to Syria “four men to launch missiles” against the Turkish territory or organize an attack on the tomb of Suleyman Shah, a Turkish enclave 30 km within the Syrian territory. The authenticity of the tapped conversations is yet to be ascertained and proved. However, the hot climate prior to the Election Day led Erdogan to announce that if his party AKP had lost consensus and failed to be the most voted, he would have abandoned the political realm. Gagging the Internet. Election Day was marked by clashes in Istanbul, while Taskim square was closed on all sides by the police to curb the protests after the first reports on cases of gerrymandering while eight died and thirty people were wounded in violent clashes in rural areas in Hatay and Sanliurfa (near the border with Syria) between opposite factions siding with different candidates to the post of head of the village. On the aftermath of the elections there was mention of gerrymandering and rigged data and in the meantime, after having blocked Twitter ten days before election day and banned You Tube, on March 28, in the name of “national security”, Google denounced that Turkey is redirecting web traffic from its search engine by changing Dns addresses enabling access to sites corresponding to search results. Moreover, Google staff made known that Turkish providers set in the servers so as to appear as Google Dns, on the backdrop of the Turkish premier’s statements of alleged plot against him schemed by his opponents, and his promises of “revenge”, referring to Islamic philosopher Fetullah Gulen, a long time former ally now accused of being the instigator of the whispering campaign against him with the support of secular financial lobbies and foreign powers. Confidence to the premier. Announced as a referendum for or against Erdogan himself and his party, and as an electoral test ahead of the August presidential elections, the outcome of the vote was clear. According to political analysts, it seems that the country has preferred to ignore the scandals, corruption, human rights violations, the gagging of freedom and democracy imposed by the Premier, confirming their trust in those at the lead of the country since 2002, considered capable of understanding the needs and expectations of his people, keep electoral promises in terms of major works and infrastructures, and revamp the economy. Erdogan appears to have managed to consolidate his historic, Muslim and rural constituency. The divisions among opposition parties went in his favour. For the first time in the history of Turkey women were elected mayors in three urban centres – in Diyarbakir, capital of Turkish Kurdistan; Aydin, and Gaziantep, near the border with Syria, but the percentage of women candidates in all parties was under 5%.