TURKEY: Turks vote in crucial election

Millions of Turks flocked to vote on Sunday (July 22) in a parliamentary election seen as crucial to the future direction of this large Muslim but secular democracy straddling Europe and the Middle East. Opinion polls show the ruling pro-business, Islamist-rooted AK Party government winning a fresh five-year mandate but strong gains by nationalist and secularist opposition parties could slash its majority and result in slower reforms. "Let our election of representatives be beneficial to our people, our country and to our democracy," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told reporters as he and his headscarfed wife Emine cast their ballots in his conservative Uskudar constituency on the Asian side of Istanbul. Voting is compulsory in Turkey and turnout was 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. "I cannot say who I voted for but I voted for the best for Turkey. We have big problems in our country and we had to do something by voting for it," said voter Ahmet Yucel before casting his ballot in Ankara. Erdogan, 53, Turkey's most popular politician, called the poll months early after the secular elite, including the powerful army, stopped him appointing a fellow ex-Islamist, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, as president. Secularists say the AK Party wants to undermine Turkey's strict separation of religion and state, although the ruling party denies this. Turkey's Chief of Staff Yasan Buyukanit was amongst those who cast his vote in Ankara. Earlier this year during a crisis over the presidential election, the military pledged to intervene in politics if Turkey's secular principles were threatened. The armed forces have removed four governments in the past 50 years, including an Islamist government as recently as 1997. Erdogan, who denies any Islamist agenda, has presided over strong economic growth and falling inflation since his party swept to power in 2002 on the back of a financial crisis. He has vowed more economic, social and political reforms needed to join the European Union despite scepticism over whether the bloc will ever let Turkey join. Polling stations closed at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) and first unofficial results are due around 9 p.m. (1800 GMT). Only two other parties -- the centre-left but nationalist Republican People's Party (CHP) and far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) -- look set to pass the high 10 percent national threshold to enter parliament. Some independent, mostly pro-Kurdish candidates, are also tipped to win seats in the 550-member parliament. One is Kurdish independent candidate Aysel Tugluk, who cast her vote in the southern, mostly Kurdish, Turkish city of Diyarbakir. Just before voting in the parliamentary elections, Tugluk, a Democratic Society Party (DTP) leader, said she hoped the elections would unite the Turkish people. "Let my vote be beneficial to the Democratic Republic and to the union of our people," she said. Turkey's Kurds, numbering between 12 million and 15 million in a total population of 74 million, have long complained of political, economic and cultural discrimination, partly because they are not officially recognised as an ethnic minority. Kurds hope these elections will be a turning point for the poorest region as Pro-Kurdish politicians are poised to enter the parliament for the first time in more than a decade. International observers monitored the elections in some areas, including Diyarbakir. The delegation of European Union observers has previously expressed concerns about Turkey's 10-percent threshold for political parties and lack of representation of minorities. Turkey's poor, restive southeast has not been represented in parliament by pro-Kurdish parties since the early 1990s when several MPs were kicked out of the chamber and later jailed for speaking the Kurdish language while taking their oath of office. Turkish security forces have been battling PKK Kurdish rebels since 1984 in a conflict that has cost more than 30,000 lives. Violent clashes have increased over the past year. Turkey's next government will have to decide whether to send the army into northern Iraq to crush PKK rebels based there, a move that is increasingly worrying the United States.

ITN Source | July 22, 2007

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