I was in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır last week with a group of journalists upon the invitation of the Islamic conservative Felicity Party (SP). It was a great chance to observe the mood there ahead of the forthcoming elections.
Turkey is preparing for a fateful election. If the ruling party wins again then democratic prospects will look quite grim, at least according to most opposition and foreign observers.
Economics is not my area of expertise, but the whole nation is talking about the economy.
The Palestinians have suffered many disasters, permanent displacement from their lands, massacres, and severe suppression. U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to move the U.S. Embassy there is the latest injustice, also led to a massacre of tens of people on the border between Gaza and Israel.
The good news is that Turkey’s opposition is recovering from its long-time inertia.
Last weekend, I met two leftist friends of mine at a restaurant and “the issue” came up, although I have avoided discussing why I had been expelled several months ago from an opposition republican newspaper I had been writing a political column for at the time. I avoided making a fuss about it only because I did not want ruling party supporters to abuse it in order to justify the suppression of the opposition.
Opposition parties spent last week in search of a presidential candidate. In fact it was the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) that seemed keenest to seek a political alliance with other parties, rather than running in the election with its own candidate. The splinter nationalist İYİ (Good) Party leader, Meral Akşener, had earlier announced her candidacy and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) named jailed leader Selahattin Demirtaş as its candidate.
Parliament has now approved the snap election call of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and June 24 is set to be Turkey’s “final election.”
The missile strike on Syria was another embarrassing phase in the tragic episode that started in 2011. The joint operation by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France was a sheer show of power—nothing more, nothing less. What’s worse is the use of humanitarian language for such actions further tarnishes the belief in international humanism.
