Erdogan is there to stay

Submitted by Nazim Cairo (France), Apr 23, 2017 at 20:26

I have a thought. I think this low percentage shows that AKP is yet cautions. Elections were relatively free and fair as they could be in Turkey early on in his rein, before 2013. They became slowly less and less fair and now are not even free, at least from now on this is absolutely obvious. Given that over half of population hates him as much as they do rigging elections right away would have had negative consequences. Gates were opened and castles were taken one by one. They started with military, then moved to police, judiciary, press and fellow islamists. Finally, even loyal friends but potential rivals like Gul and Davutoglu are disposed of. CHP and MHP marginalized, HDP destroyed.

But voters can not be discounted just yet, there should be a managed transition away from electoral democracy which becomes a sham. Something similar happened in Russia. Protests against electoral fraud will be less of a problem in the future Turkey, they would have been problematic few years ago. Plus Erdogan is vain and wants to test his mettle in elections, he genuinely likes to campaign.

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