May 16, 2011

Will the MHP stay above election threshold?

Mümtazer Türköne

Recent public polls show that the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) will receive 9 to 12 percent of the vote in the upcoming elections. Experts are concerned about the party's votes. The analysts I talked to say they are experiencing difficulty in gauging electoral support for the party. The MHP could be the major surprise of this election as it may fall below the election threshold. Based on the current outlook, I think the party will not be able to surpass the threshold.

The Kemalist sympathizers of bin Laden

Mustafa Akyol

“One Laden dies, a thousand Ladens are born,” reads the cover story of the current issue of the magazine “Türk Solu,” (Turkish Left.) A smiling photo of bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who just got killed by American soldiers, covers the front page of the magazine. And its logo presents a sober photo of the all-secular Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, while defining the publication as “An Atatürkist, nationalist, leftist paper.”

I know, it sounds weird. But it is actually not that weird when one gets to know the “anti-imperialist” strain within Kemalism (aka “Atatürkism”), and the political, rather than religious nature of al-Qaeda.