Which way, Turkey? Update: 17 hurt in election violence Update: Secular opposition losing Update: A promise from Erdogan
7/23 8:45am Eastern update: We shall see…
Turkey’s prime minister pledged to work toward national unity and fight terrorism after the Islamic-rooted ruling party won parliamentary elections by a wide margin.
Although the ruling party’s success has been touted as proof that Islam and democracy can coexist, the new government is likely to face persistent tension over the role of Islam in society.
State-run Anatolia news agency was projecting that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party would win 340 of the 550 seats, as votes in all but six of more than 158,000 ballot boxes across the country were counted.
Erdogan, a devout Muslim, pledged to safeguard the country’s secular traditions and do whatever the government deems necessary to fight separatist Kurdish rebels.
“We will never make concessions over the values of people, the basic principles of our republic. This is our promise. We will embrace Turkey as a whole without discriminating,” he said at a rally in the capital, Ankara.
Update: 1:19pm Eastern. Election results coming in…
Turkey’s Islamic-rooted ruling party was headed for victory Sunday with more than half the votes counted in parliamentary elections that pitted the government against opponents warning of a threat to secular traditions.
With 56 percent of votes counted, the ruling Justice and Development Party won 48.5 percent and two secular opposition parties had 18.8 percent and 14.7 percent respectively, according to results on television news channels.
CNN-Turk television predicted that the ruling party would secure a majority of 334 seats in the 550-member Parliament after all the votes were counted. It based its projection on a survey of 400 polling stations.
“We are doing very well throughout Turkey,” said Nevzat Cetinkaya, deputy chairman of the ruling party.
***
Turkey is holding parliamentary elections today. The importance of the vote there can’t be emphasized enough. The choice in the minds of many Turks is this: sharia or secularism? East or West? Submission or resistance? A battle over Muslim headscarves prompted the elections:
A general election on Sunday in this mostly Muslim nation might help answer a divisive question: whether women should be allowed to wear head scarves in official settings and state institutions.
It was a tempest over a head scarf that helped trigger the elections in the first place. Secularists reacted with outrage when the Islamic-oriented ruling party proposed a presidential candidate whose wife covered her head.
The opposition boycotted the presidential vote in Parliament and secularists held massive rallies in several cities to protest the nomination of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.
A key element of the opposition’s position was that it would be a disgrace for a headscarf-clad first lady to live in the mansion once occupied by Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — who established the modern secular state from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. The government was eventually forced to withdraw Gul’s candidacy and called the July elections.
The ban imposed on Islamic-style headscarf is a long running problem that has increasingly dominated the agenda here, in parallel to the rise of the country’s political Islamic movement.
In 1999, Huda Kaya and her two daughters were accused in court of “attempting to forcefully dissolve the Turkish Republic,” a charge carrying a possible death sentence at the time.
Their alleged crime? Like thousands of others, they had participated in a rally against a government ban on wearing Islamic headscarves in universities.
Michael Rubin posts a backgrounder here.
See also: Robert Spencer’s May Jihad Watch video, “Can Turkey resist Islamification?”
The WSJ looks at the Turkish Test.
Update: It has been a “largely peaceful” election process, but there have been outbreaks of violence at polling places throughout the country. A glimpse:
The Anatolia news agency reports scuffles between rival party workers have left two people slightly injured in Demre, a tourist haven in southern Turkey.
A row erupted between supporters of the right-wing Nationalist Action Party (MHP) and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over claims AKP workers had dumped leaflets on the streets, breaching an election day campaign ban.
Both sides have pressed charges.
Officials in the mainly Kurdish south-eastern province of Diyarbakir say three men were also injured when two groups attacked each other with knives and sticks during voting at a polling station in Bismil.
Anatolia says one of the men was badly wounded.
In the village of Buyukakoren, also in Diyarbakir, villagers and rival party workers fought after a man tried to help his illiterate wife to vote inside the polling booth.
Officials say three villagers sustained knife wounds and another three suffered head injuries from flying stones and sticks.
Anatolia also reports six men were hurt when a political discussion at a coffee house erupted into a free-for-all in Sason, in the eastern province Batman.
Barry Rubin reports from Istanbul.
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Trackbacks
- Captain's Quarters
- Turkey Faces The Polls at Conservative Times--Republican GOP news source.
- Bill's Bites
- Gubatron
- PoliBlog ™: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » Malkin and Morrissey on Turkey
- SmartChristian.com
- Turkish Islamists Increase Majority « Nate Nelson
- Clark Mountain Musings - Ataturk's legacy slipping....
- ProCynic
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Thank God the Turkish military absolutely will not allow an Islamist to rule the country as an Islamist state.
The military may be reluctant to intrude on civilian affairs for the most part. But when it comes to secular vs. Islamic ideology, they are more than willing to move in and reestablish secular rule if necessary.
The left blames Bush (natch) and Iraq for this state of affairs in Turkey but this clash has been coming since the mid-90’s and the growth of Islamic parties at the ballot box. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
This election will tell us volumes concerning this critical issue the world faces, secular vs. Islam. Have the Islamist made enough headway in Turkey to win?
When do the polls close?
And how will this influence Turkeys bid to join Eurabia?
And more importantly would electing an islamist government help or hinder the bid?
Because of a broken immigration policy and low birth rate among native British citizens, look for this to happen in England in the next 20 years. I hope they don’t say let us rollover instead of let’s roll. We should deport all our illegal aliens to Great Britain. Border fence, what border fence?
Gotta respect Turkey maintaining a secular parliamentary gov’t half a century in that part of the world. That surely cannot be an easy thing to do on many levels.
Trying to start a debate regarding the idea that Islam and the Islamists are actually that far apart.
Thank you for any comments either by private email or publicly.
Unwarranted Attack on Diana West a response!
I support a secular government, however I believe muslim women should be allowed their headscarves, because I believe in Freedom of Religion.
If we tell women they cannot wear their headscarves, we must ban crosses too.
Turkey, however, is not secular nor does it allow freedom of religion. It is virulently anti-Christian.
I could care less what they do over there, but why let masses of Musselmen emigrate here so we have to face the same decisions and problems arising from religious zealotry?
The traditional American value of freedom of religion depends on a sufficient lack of religious zealotry on the part of citizens that they do not try to force their religious values on others.
Muslims and Christianity, A short course in the wonderful world of hatred that makes up Islam.
http://babbazeesbrain.blogspot.com/
Turkey threw curveballs at us in the buildup to the Iraq war. I’m still not over that, I suppose.
The question in Turkey is “What will become of all the Euro and American and Japanese based investments in that country?” Also, will the Turkish Kurds allow the self-contained TurkoMullahs to impose Iranistan type control over the population? Who will control the military and all of its US-inspired/supported technologogical assets?
It is an ambiguous situation there, moreso than it was in Iran or Iraq. I am glad in retrospect that the EU smelled dogcr*p and balked on Turkey’s application for EU membership.
Bottomline: bullets will be flying by the end of the year all along the watchtower.
And by the end of 08, there wont be a theocratic element left standing from Turkey through the teetering Pakistan.
Gonna be a hard year for the Democrats.
And for CAIR.
From Reuters @ 3:32 PM EDT:
Turkey’s Ruling AKP Wins Vote
You mean Islam is an aggressive domination determined religion whose moderates support assimilation of infidels by threat of death?
What a shock to find out after all that it’s an ideology that’s killing us.
PierreLegrand – “Unwarranted Attack on Diana West a response!”
PierreLegrand, nice to see another big fan of Diane West. As you probably know Daniel Pipes is also.
Diana West is brilliant.
By Diana West:
There Imam Bush goes
again
“There Imam Bush goes again. “I am astonished by President Bush
when he claims there is nothing in the Qu’ran that justifies jihad
violence in the name of Islam,” jailed jihadi cleric Abu Qatada said under
similar circumstances almost six years ago. “Is he some kind of
Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Qu’ran?”
No. He’s just leader of the Free World — a Free World that has
become less free and more dhimmified on his severely myopic watch”.
Daniel Pipes says ” … … standing shoeless, George W. Bush rededicated
the center [the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C.] last week. His
1,600-word speech also praised medieval Islamic culture (”We come to
express our appreciation for a faith that has enriched civilization for
centuries”), but he knew a mosque from a church – and he had more on the
agenda than flattery. Most arresting, surely, was his statement that “I
have invested the heart of my presidency in helping Muslims fight
terrorism, and claim their liberty, and find their own unique paths to
prosperity and peace.”
“Adding to the event’s accommodationist tone, some of the president’s
top female aides, including Frances Townsend and Karen Hughes, wore
makeshift hijabs as they listened to him in the audience. In brief, it
feels like “déjà vu all over again.” As Diana West puts it, “Nearly six
years after September 11 – nearly six years after first visiting the
Islamic Center and proclaiming ‘Islam is peace’ – Mr. Bush has learned
nothing.”"
“Almost 30 years after Islamists first attacked Americans, and on the
eve of three major attempted terrorist attacks in Great Britain, the
president’s speech reveals how confused Washington remains.”
Diana West says
What President Bush should say to us, Part I
Diana West continues
What President Bush should say to us, Part II
I don’t know what this means for Eurabia or for NATO as on of supposed allies is rapidly imploding to become another Islamic state. It’s time to recognize that Islam is our enemy and that we must take strong action NOW to prevent our nation from the Islamic conquerers.
JohntheChristian said:
I support a secular government, however I believe muslim women should be allowed their headscarves, because I believe in Freedom of Religion.
If we tell women they cannot wear their headscarves, we must ban crosses too.
Muslim women wearing head scarves, even more so burkas, is more akin to blacks having to wear chains, pre civil war, or ride in the back of the bus, south pre civil rights movement, than it is to Christian women wearing a cross.
This to the headscarves thing as well.
The veil is a security threat. The leader at the red mosque wore a burqua so that he could escape. All a bank robber would have to do is enter the bank in a veil or a burqua (under ‘freedom of religion’) and nobody would see their identity.
I would think muslims would want to avoid this PR nightmare of ‘muslim women’ going on a bankrobbing rampage. It isn’t freedom of religion. It is security for our country – and protection of their religion from people who would use burquas to hide their identity while they committed crimes.
Nothing to see here, move along now, just the ROP…