April 1, 2011

Marching towards elections

Kerim Balcı

Turkey is approaching some very fateful elections. Whatever happens in these three months before the elections will have to be interpreted with the elections in mind.

This is not to say that everything that happens is done specifically to influence the elections; but anything that happens will have an influence on the outcome. This is also true for anything that does not happen when it should. This gives analysts the right and duty to add an “election dimension” to their thinking.

One particular issue that “happened when it might not” was the Ergenekon investigation expanding to media outlets. The courts arrested two journalists who were allegedly involved in a plan to water down the investigation and the judicial process related to Ergenekon. One of the arrestees had already published a book about the Hizmet Movement (aka Gülen Movement) and the other was working on the draft of a new one. Nedim Şener’s book was titled “Fethullah Gülen and the Movement in the Ergenekon Documents” and Ahmet Şık’s was to be titled “The Imam’s Army,” where “imam” allegedly refers to Gülen.