Election
Well, I wasn't able to do this from Antep, and I wasn't able to do it after I got back because life intervened. So I shall be brief.
On election day, the only day of the five I was there, everybody in our delegation was up and out of the hotel before 7.30am, as we had promised to be at the HDP campaign offices at that time. Polls opened at 8am and we didn't want to delay our friends.
We arrived sometime between 7.30 and 8am and no-one was there! Around 8.30 Pinar came in. "Have you voted?" was my first question. She confirmed she had. "John thought you might be leaning MHP" I joked.
The day was essentially spent visiting polling stations. We were taken in batches to the HDP office in a Kurdish area. At first two of our groups (one of which included myself, John, and Pinar), were attached to the top two candidates on the HDP list in Antep. We went to two polling stations along with them. However, there were snags. Since we were visiting polling stations in Kurdish areas, both were greeted like rockstars by the assembled voters -- cheers and applause on their appearance. That in itself didn't really seem conducive to a calm and unpressurised voting environment, and tag on a bunch of foreigners, it didn't look so well. In addition, we were moving around in a big convoy of cars, and at one stage the candidate that John and Pinar and I were with got quite upset with his driver and said angrily that we were blocking the road. From there it was decided that the candidates should split up from each other and the observers should travel separately as well. We did so, and saw some more polling stations in Kurdish areas and then some in a more affluent, secular neighbourhood.
We didn't really see any noticeable irregularities, with just one exception. There was a commotion at the first polling station we visited, but it turned out that be because a man, having cast his vote, became convinced he'd done it wrong and then got very upset when the staff wouldn't let him have another ballot paper.
In the same polling station, later on, though, we did hear something to concern us. We met a young Turkish lawyer who was observing, a member of the Gaziantep Bar, who had -- and was keen to show us -- scratches on his neck, signs of a scuffle about his person, and broken glasses. He told the following story.
The AKP Minister for the Interior had come to visit the polling station, accompanied by a phalanx of police and bodyguards -- at least six. He entered a polling station, where a member of the public who was voting said to him, "You shouldn't come in here with all those bodyguards." The Minister took umbrage and his entourage detained the young man. At this point our legal observer was called for, and when he came in, he was physically attacked by the bodyguards. The Minister apparently said something to the effect of "You will see, I will pull this school down on your heads!" The voter who had first objected was bundled downstairs and placed in a police car, but through the combined efforts of the crowd was extracted from it and got away!
This was the only story we heard that was of concern. We did not notice any voter intimidation and I have to say that the entire process seemed extremely well-regulated. All of the polling stations we visited were in schools. Each classroom was commandeered as a separate "station," each with its own number and list of voters. (This explains why there were 3700 polling stations in Antep alone. Whereas here, the building would be the polling station, for example, an entire school, or an entire library; there, the polling station was each individual room, with only a few hundred voters allocated to it). We were politely greeted everywhere we went (in my group at least). At one station in the Kurdish area Pinar whispered to us that the voters felt comforted and reassured to see international observers. But even in the affluent area we were greeted with friendliness when it was explained that we were international observers.
The result is now well-known. The HDP received 13% of the vote, quite something in light of the fact that before the election, there were doubts expressed about whether they'd meet the 10% threshold.
I was so lucky to catch a ride, with John and Amy, to the Kurdish area, Vatan, after the result became known. An HDP supporter named Mehmet, whom it seems Amy had befriended earlier in the day, drove us. The entire area was a street party -- men, women, and children of all ages, dancing, ululating, singing, cheering, waving flags, and chanting "Biz'ler Meclise" ("We are all going to the Parliament!"). Almost every car had people sitting outside of all four windows and sprouting out of sunroofs, waving flags and banners, giving the "V for victory" sign. As we arrived, we heard four loud bangs. I startled, worried after the bombs at the rally in Diyarbakir some days previously, but no one else reacted and so I realised that it must be celebratory gunfire. This would have made me a lot more nervous if the area wasn't so crammed with women and children. As it was though, we stayed half an hour or so to soak in the atmosphere and then decided it was time to go. We ended up at the home of a friend of Mehmet's and watching the results solidify until shortly after 1am, by which time I was visibly drooping and the others were getting tired too.
I have to remark here on the civilised hours of Turkish elections. The polls were open from 8am to 5pm, which, if the election had been on a weekday, would be shocking, but as it was a Sunday and a public holiday given the following day (by law, I believe), there was no issue. Then, the count was so efficient that the results were known before midnight.
I believe that a large part of the reason that the election went ahead so smoothly is due to Turkish civic society. In response to fears of electoral tampering or fraud, they organised themselves to an incredible degree through various bodies, one of which was called "Oy ve Otesi" -- "Vote and Beyond." Various non-politically-affiliated organisations had eyes in basically every polling station in the country. Worried that their election might not be fair, the Turks made sure it was.
Of course now everything is still uncertain. The AKP* didn't win a majority. The HDP* made a campaign promise not to go into coalition with the AKP, which they have stuck to. The MHP* have likewise refused to go into coalition with the AKP, saying they will be an effective opposition if an AKP-CHP-HDP coalition is formed. The CHP* will not work with the AKP but will work with both the HDP and the MHP if both promise not to work with the AKP. So basically, all the parties' coalition preferences are incompatible with each other.
As far as I know, this is where things still stand, and the AKP may be left with the choice of trying to form a minority government, or calling new elections.
*AKP = Ruling party. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was its leader and PM from 2002 until 2014. Then he stood for President and won. Now the PM is Ahmet Davutoglu, who is generally considered a puppet for Erdogan. The party is Islamist, but on the whole moderately so. Its first goal was to win more freedom of religious expression by, eg, lifting the ban on the wearing of the headscarf in public buildings, and to reduce the power of the hard secularist military-bureaucratic complex ("deep state"). It was successful at both, but has in late years become increasingly authoritarian under Erdogan's rule.
HDP = pro-Kurdish umbrella party under which the Kurdish BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) and various left-wing parties have made common cause.
CHP = Ataturk's party. Centre-left, hard secularist.
MHP = Turkey's UKIP. Hard-right, hard-nationalist, hard-Turkist. Intolerant of any suggestion of minority identities within the Great Turkish State. Violent streak -- associated with the hard-right paramilitary Grey Wolves, who were behind a lot of nationalist violence in the 1980s.
The next day there was not much to do. I slept late, visited the HDP campaign offices briefly, had a meal with Pinar and Amy, and spent the afternoon shopping in the bazaar area -- or rather, just off it. When I had visited before I had seen little lanes sprouting off the main road that leads to the "Coppersmith's Bazaar" and seen that they had a look of non-tourist shopping. And so it was. Alongside the route to the tourist/traditional bazaars was a large network of ordinary shops for clothes and household goods. I didn't buy much -- a pair of sandals for TL10 (around £2.5) and two pairs of "shalwar" style trousers from a man who, judging by the stitching and the bales of cloth in the back of his shop, I believe makes them himself, and who was not about to haggle with me. "How much?" "TL15." "Is TL15 the best price?" "Yes." "How much for two pairs?" "TL30." He was very friendly throughout, and at this stage showed me some other pairs which were TL10, he said, because the cloth was of poorer quality and thinner. Fine, I thought, for TL30 (£7.50), I'll just take two pairs of the good ones!
The day of my return flight to Istanbul, my service bus to the airport was booked for 11am. I used the morning to visit the Zeugma Mosaic Museum. I can't even attempt to describe it. The mosaics were amazing -- beautiful, stunning, detailed, works of art large enough to cover a floor or the base of a swimming pool (for so they did, once), and many of them extremely well-preserved. Even the ones that weren't, of the detail that remained you could see how spectacular they once were. I wished I could stay longer.
I had Melanie's company on the service bus and at the airport for a time as our flights were only an hour apart, although she was going Turkish Airlines to Ataturk International and then Heathrow, whereas I was flying Pegasus to Sabiha Gokcen and then Stanstead.
My return trip was not as pleasant as going out. On the first flight, there was severe turbulence on take-off as a result of which I was airsick not only for the flight but for several hours afterwards. And there were several hours to wait. I had an eight hour layover at Sabiha Gokcen between my flights. Melanie and I figured out there was probably only £20 difference in our flight costs. Next time I'm flying Turkish Airlines.
On election day, the only day of the five I was there, everybody in our delegation was up and out of the hotel before 7.30am, as we had promised to be at the HDP campaign offices at that time. Polls opened at 8am and we didn't want to delay our friends.
We arrived sometime between 7.30 and 8am and no-one was there! Around 8.30 Pinar came in. "Have you voted?" was my first question. She confirmed she had. "John thought you might be leaning MHP" I joked.
The day was essentially spent visiting polling stations. We were taken in batches to the HDP office in a Kurdish area. At first two of our groups (one of which included myself, John, and Pinar), were attached to the top two candidates on the HDP list in Antep. We went to two polling stations along with them. However, there were snags. Since we were visiting polling stations in Kurdish areas, both were greeted like rockstars by the assembled voters -- cheers and applause on their appearance. That in itself didn't really seem conducive to a calm and unpressurised voting environment, and tag on a bunch of foreigners, it didn't look so well. In addition, we were moving around in a big convoy of cars, and at one stage the candidate that John and Pinar and I were with got quite upset with his driver and said angrily that we were blocking the road. From there it was decided that the candidates should split up from each other and the observers should travel separately as well. We did so, and saw some more polling stations in Kurdish areas and then some in a more affluent, secular neighbourhood.
We didn't really see any noticeable irregularities, with just one exception. There was a commotion at the first polling station we visited, but it turned out that be because a man, having cast his vote, became convinced he'd done it wrong and then got very upset when the staff wouldn't let him have another ballot paper.
In the same polling station, later on, though, we did hear something to concern us. We met a young Turkish lawyer who was observing, a member of the Gaziantep Bar, who had -- and was keen to show us -- scratches on his neck, signs of a scuffle about his person, and broken glasses. He told the following story.
The AKP Minister for the Interior had come to visit the polling station, accompanied by a phalanx of police and bodyguards -- at least six. He entered a polling station, where a member of the public who was voting said to him, "You shouldn't come in here with all those bodyguards." The Minister took umbrage and his entourage detained the young man. At this point our legal observer was called for, and when he came in, he was physically attacked by the bodyguards. The Minister apparently said something to the effect of "You will see, I will pull this school down on your heads!" The voter who had first objected was bundled downstairs and placed in a police car, but through the combined efforts of the crowd was extracted from it and got away!
This was the only story we heard that was of concern. We did not notice any voter intimidation and I have to say that the entire process seemed extremely well-regulated. All of the polling stations we visited were in schools. Each classroom was commandeered as a separate "station," each with its own number and list of voters. (This explains why there were 3700 polling stations in Antep alone. Whereas here, the building would be the polling station, for example, an entire school, or an entire library; there, the polling station was each individual room, with only a few hundred voters allocated to it). We were politely greeted everywhere we went (in my group at least). At one station in the Kurdish area Pinar whispered to us that the voters felt comforted and reassured to see international observers. But even in the affluent area we were greeted with friendliness when it was explained that we were international observers.
The result is now well-known. The HDP received 13% of the vote, quite something in light of the fact that before the election, there were doubts expressed about whether they'd meet the 10% threshold.
I was so lucky to catch a ride, with John and Amy, to the Kurdish area, Vatan, after the result became known. An HDP supporter named Mehmet, whom it seems Amy had befriended earlier in the day, drove us. The entire area was a street party -- men, women, and children of all ages, dancing, ululating, singing, cheering, waving flags, and chanting "Biz'ler Meclise" ("We are all going to the Parliament!"). Almost every car had people sitting outside of all four windows and sprouting out of sunroofs, waving flags and banners, giving the "V for victory" sign. As we arrived, we heard four loud bangs. I startled, worried after the bombs at the rally in Diyarbakir some days previously, but no one else reacted and so I realised that it must be celebratory gunfire. This would have made me a lot more nervous if the area wasn't so crammed with women and children. As it was though, we stayed half an hour or so to soak in the atmosphere and then decided it was time to go. We ended up at the home of a friend of Mehmet's and watching the results solidify until shortly after 1am, by which time I was visibly drooping and the others were getting tired too.
I have to remark here on the civilised hours of Turkish elections. The polls were open from 8am to 5pm, which, if the election had been on a weekday, would be shocking, but as it was a Sunday and a public holiday given the following day (by law, I believe), there was no issue. Then, the count was so efficient that the results were known before midnight.
I believe that a large part of the reason that the election went ahead so smoothly is due to Turkish civic society. In response to fears of electoral tampering or fraud, they organised themselves to an incredible degree through various bodies, one of which was called "Oy ve Otesi" -- "Vote and Beyond." Various non-politically-affiliated organisations had eyes in basically every polling station in the country. Worried that their election might not be fair, the Turks made sure it was.
Of course now everything is still uncertain. The AKP* didn't win a majority. The HDP* made a campaign promise not to go into coalition with the AKP, which they have stuck to. The MHP* have likewise refused to go into coalition with the AKP, saying they will be an effective opposition if an AKP-CHP-HDP coalition is formed. The CHP* will not work with the AKP but will work with both the HDP and the MHP if both promise not to work with the AKP. So basically, all the parties' coalition preferences are incompatible with each other.
As far as I know, this is where things still stand, and the AKP may be left with the choice of trying to form a minority government, or calling new elections.
*AKP = Ruling party. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was its leader and PM from 2002 until 2014. Then he stood for President and won. Now the PM is Ahmet Davutoglu, who is generally considered a puppet for Erdogan. The party is Islamist, but on the whole moderately so. Its first goal was to win more freedom of religious expression by, eg, lifting the ban on the wearing of the headscarf in public buildings, and to reduce the power of the hard secularist military-bureaucratic complex ("deep state"). It was successful at both, but has in late years become increasingly authoritarian under Erdogan's rule.
HDP = pro-Kurdish umbrella party under which the Kurdish BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) and various left-wing parties have made common cause.
CHP = Ataturk's party. Centre-left, hard secularist.
MHP = Turkey's UKIP. Hard-right, hard-nationalist, hard-Turkist. Intolerant of any suggestion of minority identities within the Great Turkish State. Violent streak -- associated with the hard-right paramilitary Grey Wolves, who were behind a lot of nationalist violence in the 1980s.
The next day there was not much to do. I slept late, visited the HDP campaign offices briefly, had a meal with Pinar and Amy, and spent the afternoon shopping in the bazaar area -- or rather, just off it. When I had visited before I had seen little lanes sprouting off the main road that leads to the "Coppersmith's Bazaar" and seen that they had a look of non-tourist shopping. And so it was. Alongside the route to the tourist/traditional bazaars was a large network of ordinary shops for clothes and household goods. I didn't buy much -- a pair of sandals for TL10 (around £2.5) and two pairs of "shalwar" style trousers from a man who, judging by the stitching and the bales of cloth in the back of his shop, I believe makes them himself, and who was not about to haggle with me. "How much?" "TL15." "Is TL15 the best price?" "Yes." "How much for two pairs?" "TL30." He was very friendly throughout, and at this stage showed me some other pairs which were TL10, he said, because the cloth was of poorer quality and thinner. Fine, I thought, for TL30 (£7.50), I'll just take two pairs of the good ones!
The day of my return flight to Istanbul, my service bus to the airport was booked for 11am. I used the morning to visit the Zeugma Mosaic Museum. I can't even attempt to describe it. The mosaics were amazing -- beautiful, stunning, detailed, works of art large enough to cover a floor or the base of a swimming pool (for so they did, once), and many of them extremely well-preserved. Even the ones that weren't, of the detail that remained you could see how spectacular they once were. I wished I could stay longer.
I had Melanie's company on the service bus and at the airport for a time as our flights were only an hour apart, although she was going Turkish Airlines to Ataturk International and then Heathrow, whereas I was flying Pegasus to Sabiha Gokcen and then Stanstead.
My return trip was not as pleasant as going out. On the first flight, there was severe turbulence on take-off as a result of which I was airsick not only for the flight but for several hours afterwards. And there were several hours to wait. I had an eight hour layover at Sabiha Gokcen between my flights. Melanie and I figured out there was probably only £20 difference in our flight costs. Next time I'm flying Turkish Airlines.