Turkey's Upcoming Election
Last week the İşçi Party (Worker's Party) had a van with loudspeakers riding around our neighborhood. They are radically isolationist, communist, and vehemently anti-American. The chorus of the 'jingle' they were playing was ''America! America! Assassins! Assassins!'' Politics and Turkey's July 22nd general election are at the forefront of just about everyone's mind here right now. It looks like the AK Party, a somewhat moderate Islamist party, will maintain control of the government, although several other parties are also vying for influence. The CHP is second most influential party and they do a lot of complaining about AK Party. They are typically a secularist, pro-democratic party with socialist leanings. They don't like the way that İslam has made inroads in the current government and they criticize the major privatization projects that AK Party have supported. The MHP is next in line and they may gain some seats on Sunday. They are a na...