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Ruling Party in Turkey Wins Broad Victory
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jul 23, 2007 12:42am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Monday, July 23, 2007 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | New York Times article.
An excerpt...
"The Islamic-inspired governing party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a larger-than-expected victory in nationwide parliamentary elections on Sunday, taking close to half the total vote in a stinging rebuke to Turkey’s old guard.
With nearly all the votes counted, the Justice and Development Party led by Mr. Erdogan won 46.6 percent of the vote, according to Turkish election officials, far more than the 34 percent the party garnered in the last election, in 2002.
The secular state establishment had expected that voters would punish Mr. Erdogan’s party for promoting an Islamic agenda. But the main secular party, the Republican People’s Party, received just 20.9 percent, compared with 19 percent in the last election. The Nationalist Action Party, which played on fears of ethnic Kurdish separatism, won 14.3 percent, officials said.
The results were a mandate for Mr. Erdogan’s party, with large numbers of voters sending the message that they did not feel it is a threat to Turkish democracy. It fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to amend the Constitution, a blank check that secular Turks fear. According to the preliminary results, Mr. Erdogan’s party will have at least 340 seats in the 550-seat Parliament. The main secular party will have at least 111; the nationalists at least 71, and independents an unusually large 28 or more.
Turkey is a NATO member and a strong American ally, positions Mr. Erdogan has emphatically affirmed, and its stability is crucial in a troubled region. Its current political soul searching tries to find answers to the questions that Americans have been asking since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001: Can an Islamic-oriented government that is popularly elected be democratic and aligned with the West?" |
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