AKP short of majority needed for unilateral constitutional reform

BBC reports that with 99% of the ballots counted (that's fast!), Erdoğan's AKP has received 50% of the popular vote in the Turkish parliamentary election. This translates to 326 seats out of the Grand National Assembly's 550 seats. This is a disappointment for Erdoğan, who was aiming for one of the two options that would have allowed him to push through a new constitution without relying on votes from the opposition:

1. With a 2/3 "supermajority" of 367 seats, the AKP could have passed a new constitution unilaterally. 
2. With at least 330 seats, the AKP could have passed amendments to the constitution and then presented them to the people in a popular referendum. Given the AKP's success in the last referendum on constitutional changes (September 12 of last year), this would have been a good option for Erdoğan.

But neither of these two options are now available. If this result stands, it means that Erdoğan will have to seek the support of at least 4 parliamentarians outside the AKP. Such support is unlikely to come from the nationalist MHP, which appears to have passed the 10% threshold at 13% (54 seats), but it could come from either within the CHP (26% and 135 seats) or from some of the 35 independent candidates from the pro-Kurdish BDP.

So, early Monday-morning quarterbacking: Erdoğan's attempt to steal nationalist votes from MHP to get them under the 10% threshold failed. And in so doing, he may have lost a significant number of Kurdish votes. (Btw, this fits with my analysis of the mistaken strategy of many mainstream politicians in Western Europe, who pander to xenophobes on the misguided assumption that so doing will weaken the extreme right.) It is now time to mend some fences.

According to a tweet I just saw, voter turn-out was (as is common in Turkey) very high: 86,7%.

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UPDATE 22:59
Al Jazera's live blog quotes from Erdoğan's victory speech:

We will be humble. We have never displayed pride or boasted... We will be seeking consensus with the main opposition, the opposition, parties outside of parliament, the media, NGOs, with academics, with anyone who has something to say.

Turkish Parliamentary Candidate Murdered

This just in from Bloomberg: "A parliamentary candidate for Turkey’s Democratic Left Party was found dead before tomorrow’s election, two days after he disappeared, state-run Anatolia news agency reported."

Gun casings were reportedly found at the site. The Anatolian News Agency reports (source in Turkish) that two arrests have been made.

The Democratic Left Party (DSP) is Bülent Ecevit's old social democratic party and did not have any hopes of entering into parliament by passing the 10% bar in this election.

Turkish Parliamentary Candidate Found Dead, Anatolia Reports - Bloomberg

Resources on the Turkish 2011 elections

The Economist has an interactive feature on the June 12 elections in Turkey. The Economist site contains information about:

1. The main parties: AKP, CHP, MHP and BDP
2. Issues: The economy, the constitution, the Kurds, and freedom of speech
3. Maps: Marks provinces by income (GDP/cap), population (density), and the last election results

(BTW, Richard Falk and Hilal Elver have a very critical examination of The Economist's coverage of the Turkish elections on Al Jazeera English's website. In particular, they are critical of their recommendations for how Turks should vote, asking if

the people of Turkey really [are] so politically backward as to require guidance from this bastion of Western elite opinion...?)

Two Swedes - a lawyer and a political scientist - have started a blog about the elections that contains commentary and lots of useful information:

1. Regular opinion polls
2. The main parties: AKP, CHP, and MHP (but not BDP, interestingly enough. I have pointed this out to the bloggers, maybe the will correct this oversight)
3. Info about the electoral system

I was recently interviewed by the Swedish magazine LO Tidningen about the background to the elections. I will post a link when/if there's an article.

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UPDATE:

The BDP info had mistakenly disappeared from the www.turkishelection2011.com blog, and the authors fixed it within approximately one minute of my pointing it out. Props to them.

State of play, Turkey-EU relations, part 2

This is the second post reflecting on the current obstacles to progress in the accession negotiations. Part one listed three items as key problem areas: The visa waiver issue, Cyprus, and the slower pace of Turkish reforms. I now turn to two sets of items that pertain to challenges internal to the EU.

4. Xenophobia in the EU
This issue is one that I deal with continuously on this blog. It has long historical roots, not the least when it comes to prejudices about Muslims as well as Turks. These go back to Pope Clement IV's calls in 1342 for a crusade against “those unbelieving pagans, called in the vernacular the Turks, who thirst for the blood of Christian people and seek the destruction of the Catholic faith.” Or to the standard Exhortatio ad bellum contra barbaros that became a staple of Renaissance-era diplomatic congresses, royal weddings and "almost any public occasion," as historian Robert Schwoebel put it. The so-called "barbaros" against whom this formulaic call to war was supposed to be directed were, as you might have suspected, Ottoman Turks.

Too many actors in what is today the EU have for too long defined Europe and Europeans by contrasting them against a prejudiced view of Turkey and Turks. And this historical legacy has a continued impact on today's thinking about Europe, as illustrated e.g. by outgoing EU Commissioner Fritz Bolkestein's notorious remark (on the eve of the start of membership negotiations with Turkey in 2004), that Europe may be predominantly Islamic by the end of the century, which would mean that the "liberation of Vienna will have been in vain." His not-so-contemporary reference is to the breaking of the Ottoman Siege of Vienna in 1683...

With the post-9/11 panic about Islamic fundamentalism and Jihadist terrorism in the West, these age-old fears gained new life, and resistance to Turkish accession grew in the EU. In this light, it becomes easier to understand what otherwise might appear like a paradox: that with each major Turkish pro-democratic reform package, support for Turkish membership in the EU has seemed to cool. Between 2002 and today, Turkey has enacted substantial and extensive democratic reforms, but support for Turkey in the EU has steadily dropped. For many (though certainly not for all), concern over Turkish human rights abuses is just a cover for other fears, and for these people, bringing Turkey closer in line with the Copenhagen political criteria is not at all reassuring: it is frightening because it raises the prospects of Turkish membership.

Add to this renewed general anti-immigration sentiments throughout Europe, with the extreme right gaining ground in elections throughout the continent, and the picture looks bleak from the Turkish point of view.

Not even the more recent developments in North Africa seem to help Turkey's standing in the eyes of the common man in the EU. The "Arab spring" should probably be praised as on a par with the fall of the Berlin Wall in terms of what it means for the progress of worldwide democracy. And Turkey's importance as a model for the fledgling/aspiring democracies of Egypt and the Maghreb should underline it strategic significance. But in Europe people seem mostly worried about increased refugee flows from Libya. None of this helps Turkey, which is already associated with immigration in the eyes of many Austrians and Germans.

But there are more problems than that of xenophobia in the EU of today. The discussion of North-Africa is a nice segue into some other issues that really have nothing to do with Turkey, but which I believe nevertheless contribute to the current stalemate.

5. Unrelated problems in the EU.
For the EU's fumbling response to the Libyan revolt and civil war has revealed (or worsened or created) deep fissures within the Union, as the major European powers - Germany, the UK, Italy, and France - came down on different sides on the question of what to do with Gaddafi. The participants at a recent full-day conference at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs (titled "The EU as a Global Actor: Lessons from the Arab Spring") were unanimous in their judgment that the EU failed the "Libyan test" miserably.

And we must not forget (although how could we) the current crisis affecting the Euro-zone. It appears increasingly likely that Greece is heading for a default (or "restructuring" as the euphemism has it) on its debt. (Personally, I find it difficult to see how Greece is supposed to "cut" its way out of its recession, but hey, I'm no economist. I'm sure there is a beautifully elegant and parsimonious neo-classical law that shows just how throwing hordes of government workers into the unemployment benefits system is a great way of reducing the deficit and how slashing the salaries of those that still have a job is an excellent way of infusing demand into the economy and boosting consumer spending...)

Even so, Portugal, Spain, and perhaps even Italy are next in line for the investors' treatment. And no one really knows what the future holds for the Euro. What we do know is that Germany is increasingly reluctant to help out the Greeks, and that Finland's established parties have been forced to welcome a brand new party - the True Finns - to their group, a party whose only real election platform was a rejection of more aid to Greece (OK, that's not entirely True, they also ran on an anti-immigration platform).

None of this has anything directly to do with Turkey or its accession negotiations. But it adds up to an EU that is preoccupied with internal squabbling over foreign policy and economics, and struggling to salvage both the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the newly established European External Action Service as well as the very future of the Euro.

This EU has little time or energy over to take on the many tough decisions it would need to make to jump-start negotiations with Turkey. A badly damaged Angela Merkel would have little desire to open up a new political front at home by e.g. making concessions on Visa-free travel toward Turks, even if she felt that it was the right thing to do.

So with these five main hurdles, my suspicion is that the Turkish accession negotiations will at best muddle through for the time being, and that we are unlikely to see an major breakthrough in the near future. I hope I am wrong.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan Transcends Complex Politics of Turkey - NYTimes.com

Here's the second article in a series on Turkey in the NY Times by Anthony Shadid, this one focusing on Tayip Erdoğan (the first one explored the Ottoman legacy of trans-border ties in the Middle East).

“He’s a phenomenon, really,” said Yilmaz Esmer, a professor of political science at Bahcesehir University.

At a rally this month in Koaceli, another industrial town, Mr. Erdogan strode into a stadium packed with tens of thousands of supporters with the swagger of a brawler, legs slightly apart and stooped shoulders swaying. A crowd that had waited hours grew ecstatic. Mr. Erdogan took the stage in a suit with no tie, his hard stare hidden behind sunglasses.

“We didn’t come to rule!” he declared to adulation. “We came to serve you!”

The portrait in this piece rimes well with the praise for Erdoğan's skills as a politician that I heard from a visiting Turkish scholar not to long ago. It was clearly reluctant praise, but praise none the less. While he often appears clumsy, brash, and emotional to an international audience, Erdoğan is incredibly popular in Turkey.

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By the way: The back story to the author of the piece is interesting. Here's how Anthony Shadid is described on the NYT website:

Anthony Shadid is the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times. He was one of four Times journalists covering the fighting in eastern Libya who were reported missing on March 16, 2011.

The Libyan government released Mr. Shadid and the other journalists on March 21, six days after they were captured while covering the conflict between government and rebel forces in the eastern city of Ajdabiya. They were released into the custody of Turkish diplomats and crossed safely into Tunisia in the late afternoon.

What more is, the Turkish government reportedly played a key role in the process leading up to their release. If I were prone to conspiracy theories, I would suggest that Mr. Shadid stands in debt of gratitude to the Turkish leadership, which might bias his reporting. But I really am not prone to such thinking. And the piece does not shy away from criticizing Erdoğan:

Mr. Erdogan’s own authoritarian streak — his sensitivity to caricatures, disdain of criticism and methodical attempts to dismantle the old-guard secular elite in the military and courts — has lost the party some of the liberal support that it had early on.

In all, both pieces are well worth reading.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan Transcends Complex Politics of Turkey - NYTimes.com

Can Turkey Unify the Arabs? | NYTimes.com

If I had time, I'd write a longer comment on this evocative NYT piece. Unfortunately, all I have time for is to post a link and excerpt:

“The bread of Azaz comes from Kilis, and the bread of Kilis comes from Azaz,” said Mr. Said, whose shop sits just off a road that once carried the business of the far-flung Ottoman Empire and now marks Turkey’s limits. “We’re the same. We’re brothers. What really divides us?”

As the Arab world beyond the border struggles with the inspirations and traumas of its revolution — a new notion of citizenship colliding with the smaller claims of piety, sect and clan — something else is percolating along the old routes of that empire, which spanned three continents and lasted six centuries before Ataturk brought it to an end in 1923 with self-conscious revolutionary zeal.

The basic thrust of the piece is that old Ottoman cultural, familial, and economic ties remain in the Middle East, bolstering Turkey's project of projecting a more ambitious regional profile. Definitely worth reading.

Can Turkey Unify the Arabs? - NYTimes.com

Armenia to participate in Turkey-hosted seminar | PanARMENIAN.Net

From Panarmenian.net:

On May 30-June 1, Bursa (Turkey) will host a seminar, titled “Cities Dialogue for European Enlargement and EU Neighborhood Policy” within “EUROCITIES ENP and Enlargement Working Group.” Armenia will participate in the event along with the EU member states, candidate countries and Balkan States.

Armenia to participate in Bursa-hosted seminar - PanARMENIAN.Net

(Here is the original source; a Turkish-language Armenian newspaper.)

Bomb Wounds 8 in Heart of Istanbul | NYTimes.com

I missed this item in yesterday's New York Times:

A bicycle bomb exploded in a popular shopping district in central Istanbul on Thursday, causing panic and wounding eight people, Turkish officials said.

Bomb Wounds 8 in Heart of Istanbul - NYTimes.com

Turkey Presses Harder for Return of Antiquities - NYTimes.com

From the New York Times's Susanne Güsten:

After years of pleading in vain for the return of Anatolia’s cultural treasures from Western museums, Turkey has started playing hardball. And it is starting to see some results.

Turkey Presses Harder for Return of Antiquities - NYTimes.com

Füle on Turkey-EU relations, visa waivers etc [video]

From EUX.tv's youtube channel:

European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Füle on Wednesday [May 18] told European business leaders that Turkey is a key contributor to the Euroepan Union's global economic power.

You'll find the video below. It contains nothing revolutionary except that Füle remains surprisingly upbeat about EU-Turkey relations in spite of the current impasse. He keeps the pressure up, asking for a "long awaited revitalization" of Turkey's political reform process. And he also attempts to allay Turkish irritation on the failure to extend visa-free travel to Turks throughout the EU. He reaffirms that the Justice and Home Affairs Council in February of this year "has opened a clear perspective" on the visa issue. Here, I assume that he is referring to the conclusions from February 24-25, according to which said council

invites the Commission, the Member States and Turkey to intensify their cooperation on visa issues, ensuring harmonised implementation of practical improvements for Turkish visa applicants within the framework of the EU Visa Code and asks the Commission to regularly report to the Council in this respect

But this is hardly revolutionary. It basically amounts to a "let's work harder." And the Cypriot delegation's addendum to this conclusion doesn't make things better:

The joint declaration on the cooperation in the area of visa policy, appears to establish a direct link between the readmission agreement and a visa dialogue. Our understanding is that the implementation in good faith of the readmission agreement is a sine qua non condition for the pursuit of such dialogue. Furthermore it has to be clear that the readmission agreement and the joint declaration do not commit the EU in a dialogue aiming towards a visa facilitation or liberalization.

Here, the Cypriot delegation denies the existence of any link between the readmission agreement (according to which Turkey would accept back into Turkey all migrants who enter the EU "illegally" through Turkey and then ensure their "repatriation" to their country of origin), which the EU wants Turkey to implement, and the visa-waiver that Turkey wants the EU to implement. [Correction: To be accurate, the statement doesn't deny the link, it just makes implementation of the readmission agreement a precondition for "dialogue" on the visa waiver matter.] In contrast to the Cypriot delegation, Turkish politicians have been making the link between these two items explicitly, in effect calling for a quid-pro-quo mutual implementation of both. In the words of one Turkish official:

Nothing is happening on the visa question and they want us to sign the re-admission agreement. Well sorry that is not going to happen.

A final reflection on Füle's remarks is that his wording appears deliberate. It seems to me at least that his choice of words are meant to appease those actors in the EU who are aiming for a "privileged partnership" of one form or another. "Looking to the future," he argues, "our common challenge is to deepen European Union-Turkey integration even further. The accession negotiations are the best tool to do this." Perhaps I am reading into this, but such a statement - stopping short of reaffirming accession as the goal - appear to be so designed as to not provoke the "partnership" crowd. Anyway, you can judge for yourself: