A Turkish parliamentary committee on Wednesday set July 22 as the date for snap general elections after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for polls to end a simmering crisis over a disputed presidential vote.
The date has to be voted into law by parliament to become official, which should be a formality since all parties represented in the house favor the early elections.
The move to hold early general elections eases a conflict between the Islam-based government and secular forces in the short term, but the crisis over how to deal with political Islam in this Western-looking democracy appears far from resolved.
Turkish society is deeply divided, and secular Turks have resorted to controversial means -- a parliamentary boycott, mass protests and a threat of military intervention -- in an attempt to erode the power of Erdogan, who they fear is trying to drag Turkey toward Islamic rule.
Until recently, Erdogan looked certain to use his majority in parliament to consolidate his control over the entire executive by installing a close ally, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, in the presidency. But the backlash against the move seems to have caught him by surprise and could lead instead to a dramatic reshuffling of Turkey's government.
It has also intensified a debate on reforming the way Turkey's representative system works.
In response to Erdogan's choice for president, hundreds of thousands of secular Turks protested against the ruling party in Istanbul and Ankara, and the opposition boycotted a parliamentary session and filed a successful appeal to the Constitutional Court to have the first round of voting for president annulled. The pro-secular military threatened to intervene to curb the rise of political Islam.
On Wednesday, Erdogan called the Constitutional Court decision a "bullet fired at democracy," but said he would abide by it. He had little choice.
Looming in the background of Turkey's democratic process is the military. The institution has carried out three coups since 1960 and nudged a pro-Islamic premier out of power in 1997, but is widely respected and traditionally has the final word on how to enforce the separation of religion and state.
"It must not be forgotten that the Turkish armed forces are a party to this debate and are the absolute defenders of secularism," the military said in a statement released just before midnight on Friday. "When necessary, they will demonstrate their attitudes and behaviors in a clear and open way. Let no one doubt this."
The threat of overthrowing an elected government prompted condemnation from leaders in the EU, which Turkey wants to join. But many Turks say the role of Turkey's military is poorly understood abroad and that by undermining it, Westerners actually undermine Turkish democracy.
Erdogan's party has raised secularist hackles primarily because it has its roots in Turkey's Islamist political movement, and Erdogan even spent time in jail in 1999 for challenging the secular system. But it rose to power in 2002 on an anti-corruption platform, riding a wave of dissatisfaction with the previous government.
Zeyno Baran, an analyst for the Hudson Institute, said in a presentation to the US Senate that the current crisis illustrated a dangerous tendency by Turks to vote irresponsibly because they relied excessively on the military to "save them" if anything went wrong, and also pointed to fundamental flaws in the Turkish representational system.
A political party must receive at least 10 percent of the vote to enter parliament in Turkey. But when only two parties did so in the elections of 2002, the remaining seats were distributed proportionally among them, giving Erdogan's party 66 percent of the seats.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS