A New Hope

[robinturner]

As I mentioned earlier ("Knights of the Old Republic") two weeks ago several hundred thousand Turks marched in Ankara in defence of secularism and against the current "Islam Lite" government (actually some sources put the numbers in millions). The last drop that overflowed the glass (to use a Turkish idiom) was the likelihood of current PM Tayyip "You can't be a secularist and a Muslim" Erdoğan becoming president. Shortly after, the government announced that their presidential nominee would be Tayyip's side-kick, Abdullah Gül. The thinking behind this was probably that if Tayyip is Islam Lite, then Abdullah is Islam 1-Cal. (An alternative theory is that Tayyip doesn't trust his own party enough to leave them alone in parliament.)

Nobody bought it, and another demonstration has been planned for tomorrow (in Istanbul, this time). But it looks like we might just be saved by the bell. The vote in parliament today was inquorate, as a result of most of the opposition MPs walking out. The speaker tried to count seven Republican People's Party members who had wandered back in as present, but I don't think the Constitutional Court (who have to decide on the validity of the vote) will do more than chuckle over that. The good thing is that the constitution also specifies that if parliament can't choose a president, there have to be early elections. Of course there is an outside possibility that in such elections, the current government could be re-elected, in which case I might actually apply for that job in Lanzhou.

Comments

[mawombat.livejournal.com]

fascinating stuff, isn't it? It's an "interesting" time to be in Turkey. I wish I could have gone to the Anitkabir demonstration but I was sick in bed that day.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Well it looks like it all turned out for the best in the end, what with Gül stepping down and elections in the offing. Of course if the AKP win those elections, then we may live in times that are a little too interesting for comfort.