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To answer the original poster, it is currently the coming out that the election was rigged, in unprecedented levels since the 1912 Ottoman elections. I've read that the percentage they got from cheating directly is estimated to be around 5% (although this is not a very radical estimate, I've seen numbers as high as near 10%), putting their apparently impressive 43% to 38%. The mounting evidence point only to an incredibly systematic election fraud. Votes in the ballots were recorded wrong on ballot recordings and the numbers in ballot recordings were recored wrong on the district recordings, the city recordings and so on and so forth. Oppositions votes were written on parties listed near in many cases, or simply for the AKP in others. Also, opposition votes were cancelled in AKP majority areas so as not to draw any suspicion. Many bags full of votes burnt or thrown into the trash were found, with evidence that they've been votes for opposition parties. In some areas, there are claims that hundreds of thousands were directed to vote in locations they don't live in for the AKP. Certain votes from ballots in AKP majority areas were kept to be transferred to areas of danger in case it's too close. There were cuts in electricity in over 40 cities (and there are 81 cities in Turkey): the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources explained the power cuts claiming cats had got in the power distribution units.
Added to all this is the number of votes they've actually bought: there was evidence that AKP was offering people money to go to the ballot with sealed, pre-made, AKP votes and bring back the real voting sheets. Considering the amount of money the Erdogan family keeps in its house, I estimate this counted to about 1% of the vote, on an average of 50 Euroes per voter, costing 20 million Euroes to the AKP. This is a conservative estimate, since Erdoğan has the financial strength to spend up to twice that number. So the real vote AKP got was probably about 36-37%, the lowest they've got since their initial victory.
To be honest it was incredibly professional. The results from AKP strongholds were given to the media almost immediately while the results from opposition strongholds were deliberately held back. There were even incidents where the AKP votes were written wrong in some recordings and other minor details; not only to increase the credibility of the elections, but also to be used as a way to play the victim if things got out of hand. This was the Ocean's Eleven of election frauds.
Nevertheless, it is, if a victory in any way, a Pyrrhic one for the AKP. They know that in reality, they've either lost Istanbul (which is more probable) or it was alarmingly close. They've arranged it so that they've won most apparent "swing" cities and lost close in the few they've lost, but what this actually means is that they were actually significantly behind in cities like Ankara, the capital, Antalya and some others. Especially in Ankara, there is an immense citizen mobilization, many of the more apolotical Gezi activists are spending days without sleep to get the ex-Gray Wolf mayoral candidate of the social-democratic CHP who, apparently, was so far ahead that they still haven't been able to get a result where Gokcek won, despite trying to cheat for four days after the election. The opposition has already won a city and two districts back, and it amy well win back more cities and districts, including Ankara and the religious stronghold Uskudar in Istanbul. It is nearly impossible that AKP will lose Istanbul because the entirety of the electoral fraud can't really be detected, however if they lose lots of apparent swing cities, their strength in Istanbul will lose a lot of credibility.
In his balcony speech, Erdogan didn't look like a victor who'd won an election despite all the scandals. He was quite tense and uncomfortable. Obviously he would have prepared to win without cheating, to really feel the actual majority of the country behind him and he doesn't. Not only does he fear the fact that the Gulenist cult (who had been publishing tapes of Erdogan and his ministers for a few months and who had exposed AKP's electoral fraud plans after getting alarming results in polls) might have a recording of what he's done. Almost all of his powerful enemies within the party (leading figures of the party he's come into conflicts of interests with such as the Bulent Arinc and Abdullah Gul or his old underlings who he's alienated by verbal and physical abuse for real or presumed failures) know what Erdogan and his friends have done and odds are that they have had a feast, gathering recordings and documents against Erdogan during the elections. Hence Erdogan had been silent since the elections and Erdogan's twitter ban has already been reversed.
These municipalities have been run in a more or less identical way to municipalities held by the social democratic Kemalist CHP and the Kurdish left-nationalist BDP. There is nothing to be excited about.
I think it is clear that the IP (Workers't Party) can't be considered to be a Nazi organization. There is a group which split off them that actually considers itself to be national socialists who actually openly calls for a genocide against the Kurds and embraces Pan-Turkism as well. They are called the National Party and publish a magazine called the Turkish Left.
The IP, on the other hand, I would say in a semi-Maoist, ultra-Kemalist organization with strong ties to the Turkish state. They have well-established connections with the Chinese Communist Party and the fascistic Third Positionist Eurasianist Movement in Russa. It is true that they've been used against the radical left often, especially in areas the actual fascists (Grey Wolves) themselves are too weak. All these are not identical with being fascists though. Politically, they are still more Stalinists than fascists. They would indeed probably consider themselves to be anti-fascists.
Recently, in Izmir, a Turkish city on the Aegean cost, they attacked the anarchists for damaging a bank together with the Turkish Communist Party in a demonstration.
Currently, there is a strange semi-open alliance between the AKP and the ultra-Kemalist political grouplings including the IP. They are in the process of actually coming out and saying Erdogan is an anti-imperialist. They never surprise. Their followers, on the other hand, are absolutely disgusted of the AKP because of their, well, ultra-Kemalism obviously, so this creates a funny situation. I don't think they are getting any stronger to be honest.
Last edited by Leo; 4th April 2014 at 00:22.
"Communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution." - Karl Marx
Pale Blue Jadal
There were riots and heavy clashes in the kurdish city Ceylanpinar (~40000 inhabitants) beause of election fraud by AKP. The mayor of AKP got reelected. They said 700 more people voted for him than for left kurdish party BDP. But BDP found a few thousand burned ballots.
The city is very important for AKP and for BDP because it's near syrian border. Fighters from Al-Nusra and ISIS are in the city and plan attacks on the liberated kurdish part of Syria ("Rojava"). There is also a picture of the AKP mayor (Menderes Atilla) with a commander of Al-Nusra. Both smiling into the camera, carrying a rifle.
It's a fake election. Absolutaly fake. As Stalin said:
"The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do"
Communism is not love, it is a hammer that we use to crush the enemy!
