TURKEY: Nationalist leader votes

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli casts his vote for a new parliament, on Sunday (July 22) in elections considered "the most important" for a long time. The leader of Turkey's far-right nationalist party cast his vote in the Turkish elections on Sunday (July 22). Devlet Bahceli's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) lost power to the ruling AK party in 2002 when it failed to clear the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament. However this time the party is confident of doing better. Bahceli joined millions of Turks taking part in what has been billed as one of the most important polls of Turkey's recent history. It follows a clash between the Islamist-rooted AK Party (Justice and Development Party) and the nation's secular elite. Although the latest opinion polls show the AK Party winning a fresh five-year mandate, MHP along with the centre-left but nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) look set to win enough votes to enter parliament. During their campaign, the MHP focused mainly on the revival of Kurdish separatist violence and accuses the AK Party of being soft on terrorism. It has also called for restoration of the death penalty for Kurdish rebels and supports the idea of a military incursion into northern Iraq to crush Turkish Kurdish rebels based there. Turks are faced with a choice between the ruling AK Party's pro-business, religiously conservative policies and nationalist rivals keen to keep Islam out of politics. Voting is compulsory in Turkey and turnout is expected to be very high. Many Turks voted early to avoid temperatures forecast to rise as high as 40 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Turkey, whose electorate numbers nearly 43 million out of a total population of 74 million, is one of the Muslim world's few democracies. Some four million young voters are taking part in a national election for the first time. Polling stations close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) and first unofficial results are due around 9 p.m. (1800 GMT). ENDS

ITN Source | July 22, 2007

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