Myths and Facts on Turkish Election's Votes, Press and Economy after OSCE/PACE's criticism

Turkish State propaganda, claiming a 50% Electoral "Majority" for Prime Minister Erdogan, in a so-called "Democratic" showcase with "Booming" Economy, is slamed by Facts revealing, on the contrary, a Minority make up and a Lack of Free Speech, with a "boom and burst", shaky Economy, as a critical OSCE/PACE Statement issued today denounced :

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Votes : Majority or ... Minority ?
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>>> In fact, only a Minority of about 21 Million People (42,4%) voted for Erdogan's governing party, contrary to a clear Majority of almost 29 Millions of People, registered Voters (57,5%), who prefered to vote for the Opposition (almost 21,6 Millions, i.e. 43,1%), cast invalid votes (nearly 1 Million Voters !) or abstain (some 6,5 Millions of People, i.e. about 13%).

But, because of the "particularities" of the Turkish Electoral System, for only ...0,130 % of Votes Mr. Erdogan got 1 MP, (=> 326 MPs for 49,8% of valid votes casted, equivalent to just 42,4% of registered Voters). The rest of 50,2% of valid votes casted, and almost 57,5% of registered Voters, i.e. a large Majority of Citizens, (valid casted Votes for Opposition parties, abstentionists/invalid votes, etc) got less than .. 224 MPs !

To put it in a nutshell, Erdogan's government got 1 MP with only 0,130% of registered Voters, i.e. about 65.000 People, while his various political Adversaries got only 1 MP for more than  0,256% of registered Voters, i.e. as much as almost 129.000 People... In other words : The Opposition was practically required, by the Turkish Electoral System, to have almost the DOUBLE of registered Voters than Erdogan's governing party in order to be represented (X 200%) !
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 => Nevertheless, AKP falls down from 363 to 341 and now "only" 326 MPs. (i.e. below the  threshhold of 330 needed for a Constitutional Referendum- even if its "valid" Votes, after growing fast from 34% to 46,5% on 2002 - 2007, now remain almost the same :  49,8% on 2011, despite a Domination in Mass Media, with many critical Journalists, from the Right or the Left, notoriously Jailed, Persecuted, Threatened, murdered or terrorized)...

+ Pro-Kurdish Party BGMZ "independent" candidates grow (slightly but regularly) from 9 to 26 and now 36 MPs, (even if its Votes grow just moderately, with 6,7% of votes Nationwide, but often more than .. 70% in the Kurdish areas !).

= CHP main opposition party, (which had fallen from 178 to only 112 MPs in 2007), re-grows just until 135 MPs, (even if it takes More Votes Now than ever : almost 26% on 2011, compared to only 20% in 2002 and 2007)...

Nationalists of MHP diminish slightly from 71 to 53 MPs now (on 2011), even if they almost maintain their Votes (13% instead of 14%). But, at least, they don't fall down to the Past, 2002 total exclusion from the Turkish Assembly with 0 MPs, and only 8% votes..

Some 5% of the Votes are taken mainly by 8 New emerging Parties which appear for the 1st time and one older, receiving from 32.000 up to 327.000 Votes (or 535.000 for a pre-existing party) each. But, because of their Dispersion, the Turkish Electoral system doesn't give them not even one MP...

This is added to almost 1 Million of invalid Votes (near to 2 %) and some 6.500.000 People's Abstention (almost 13 %), totalling nearly 20 % of Non-represented People.
Considering also the more than 15 Opposition Parties, representing an absolute Majority of valid Votes (50,2%), which are stripped from the Number of MPs to which they were normally entitled in a Proportional counting, because of the Turkish Electoral System's particularities, (Comp. supra : 65.000 votes = 1 MP for Mr. Erdogan, while the Opposition was obliged to have some 129.000 votes for 1 MP, "wasting" 64.300 Votes for each one of its 224 MPs), the number of Registered Voters who are Not-represented should, logically, reach a much Higher percentage... Indeed, this would equal almost 14,5 Millions among the valid Votes cast for the Opposition parties, i.e. 28,6% of the Registered voters...

=> Thus, in Total, it seems to be more than 48% of Registered Voters (opposed to AKP) who are either Not represented at all or seriously Under-represented in Turkey, i.e. almost the Half of them...

+ In addition, "Many stakeholders raised Questions about remarkable Changes in the Number of registered Voters in recent years, and the printing of a Dispro-portionally high number of Excess ballot Papers", OSCE/PACE critically observe, (obviously because all this might have been abused for any kind of Mass Fraud), apparently without getting any convincing Answer.. .

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=> The resulting Map of Turkey clearly shows an astonishing GeoPolitical Division between Western Zones (Istanbul/Constantinople and Ismir/Smyrne) desperately striving to keep their ancestral links to Europe since their Bi-Millenary History as Greek areas by voting for he only available Opposition "Secularist" Party , while Anatolian plateau is totally abandoned to AKP's pro-Islamist trend, with the Exception of Kurdish areas at the South-East, conquered by the pro-Kurdish Party, while some irregular Spots, at the Center-East indirectly evoke the much larger Historic presence of Armenians before the Genocide. On the whole, its an 2011 overall Picture surprisingly  similar to ... the Treaty of Sevres (1919) repartition of residus of the former Ottoman-Turc Empire...

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OSCE/PACE Criticism of Turkish Elections focuses on Lack of Free Speech+:

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>>> “To fully live up to its Democratic Commitments, Turkey must do More", pointed out the Head of OSCE's Delegation and OSCE Assembly's vice-President, Pia Christmas-Moeller (Denmark). In particular,  “Free expression and a Media Environment in which Reporters are Free from political Pressure and Intimidation are Critical for Turkey", the Top MEP warned.

- "Worrying developments, especially regarding Freedom of Expression, including Media Freedom", were, Indeed, denounced from the outset by the official Joint Statement published by OSCE and CoE (which is due to discuss the issue during its June Plenary weekly Session, next week in Strasbourg).

- In particular, "some elements of the Legal framework continue to Constrain activities of the Media and political Parties, by Limiting Freedom of Speech".

+ In addition, "the 10 percent threshold for political party representation in Parliament – the Highest in the OSCE region – remains one of the central issues that Limit the Representative nature of the legis-lature. "

- Moreover, Turkish "Government Control over influential Media groups allegedly resulted in Biased reporting and self-Censorship".

- The latter is an understandable consequence of the Fact that "Observers noted the Detention and ongoing Investigations of more than 50 Journalists in Turkey", OSCE and CoE criticized.


"Limiting freedom of the media is a viola-tion of the 1990 Copenhagen Document and a host Council of Europe documents", they warned Turkish pro-Government MEPs.
    

CoE's Assembly has recently adopted texts making National Delegations of MEPs Responsible for their Government's failure to implement ECHR's Judgements, and this is due to be further discussed and voted also next week in Strasbourg at a Report drafted by the President of PACE's Legal/Human Rights Committee, Christos Purgurides from Cyprus (ChristianDemocrats/EPP) on Thursday.

"Putting journalists under the permanent Threat of Criminal lawsuits", resulted, according to "many observers, including the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media", by a "ruling" of "2 May 2011", by which, "the Turkish Constitutional Court amended the Press Law to extend .... filing Criminal cases against Journalists from 2 Months to 8 Years".

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan astonished many CoE observers, last April in Strasbourg, when he replied to critical questions on Press Freedom Violations in Turkey, by merely boasting that he had been, himself, persecuted in Courts and Jailed (for 2 Months), but afterwards created a new Political Party, won elections, and got the top political job.. I.e. practically challenging Dissidents, many of whom are systematically submited to Harassing Attacks, Censorship, Criminal Prosecution, many Years of Imprisonment, and/or killed, without the instigators of their Murderers ever found until recently ! (Comp. f. ex. Turkey's condemnation by ECHR even in the famous Armenian Journalist Hrant Dink's cold-blood 2007 Murder, in a Judgement taking into account all developments in the investigation until it was published in Strasbourg at the Autumn of 2010, revealing several astonishing Facts on the behavior of Turkish Authorities vis a vis Murderers of Critical Journalists, obviously able to provoke a Chilling effect, Intimidation and/or Self-Censorship during the crucial following Months at the eve of June 2011 Election...

ECHR's Revelations on a scandalous treatment of the Hrant Dink Murder case by Turkish Authorities came shortly after Turkey managed to "close" CoE Committee of Ministers' examination of Ankara's duty to implement ECHR's Judgement which had condemned her for totaly failing to make any efficient Investigation on the cold blood Murder of Dissident Turkish Cypriot Journalist Kutlu Adali, shot with 5 Bullets at his Head in front of his Family Home in the Territories of Cyprus Occupied by Ankara's Army. (See earlier "EuroFora"s Publications on that case).
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 - "On 2 May 2011 the Turkish Constitutional Court amended the Press Law to extend the statute of limitations for filing criminal cases against journalists from two months to eight years. This ruling has been cited by many observers, including the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, as put-ting journalists under the permanent threat of criminal lawsuits.

+ In addition, "Many stakeholders raised Questions about re-markable Changes in the Number of registered Voters in recent years, and the printing of a Dispro-portionally high number of Excess ballot Papers", OSCE/PACE critically observe, (obviously because all this might have been abused for any kind of Mass Fraud), apparently without getting any convincing Answer.. .

- "There was Heavy police presence and Tensions in parts of the South East, as well as isolated reports of physical Attacks".

+ Moreover, "there were initial Problems with the Registration of some Independent Candidates", merely notes the OSCE/PACE delegation's rapporteur, apparently ignoring the Fact that even a Child (Orenc) was reportedly killed by Bullets during an attack by Turkish State Agents against Demonstrators protesting for the Exclusion of 12 Independent Candidates in the Kurdish areas.

A Swedish and a Danish MEP from CoE and OSCE's Assemblies, Kerstin Lundgren and Christmas-Moeller, led the respective delegations.

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Turkish Economy  : "Boom and Burst" ?
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Contrary to some False and Misleading presentations about a so-called "Big Rise in Growth" for Turkey, on the contrary, Ankara's situation remains the same since the 1990ies, and it even failed  to find anew its 1990 Past Growth... (See Graphics) :  

Real GDP Growth in Turkey stays the same since .. 1990-2010 !.... The only difference being a partly slower recurrence of periodic Crisis, apparently due to regular EU taxpayers' Money (almost 1 Billion € each Year !), since the controversial and unpopular EU - Turkey accession Negotiations, (after 2006 re-named "Open-ended")...
 

Agriculture still provides more Jobs in Turkey than Industry : 29,5% compared to 24,7%, according to the latest USA Data.

After a grave Crisis emerged during 1999 (See OECD's Report on Turkey, published on July 1999), Turkish Economy's usual "Boom-and-Bust" cycles "culminated in a Severe banking and economic Crisis in 2001, a Deep economic Downturn (GNP fell -9.5% in 2001), and an increase in Unemployment".

But with its controversial and unpopular EU bid, Turkey started to receive regular EU Funding from EU Taxpayers' Money (including the Poor People obliged to pay more VAT than others in percentage of their meagre revenues), stabilizing somewhat the situation between 2002-2007.

However, "Growth fell down to only +1,1% on 2008, (0,7% according to the World Bank), and economy contracted by - 4,7% in 2009", USA Government Data note.
In fact, Growth persists to Fall Down according to a Regular Trend since a +8,4% high back in the 2005 Past (when EU - Turkey Accession Negotiations had started), with -1,5% Less on 2006 (+6,9%), -2,3% Less on 2007 (+4,7%), -3,4% Less on 2008 (+1,1%), Droping down to -5,6% Less on 2009 ( -4,7% contraction), and all data show that it will be impossible to return on 2010 to the 2005's results.

GDP per capita, after growing until just 10,436 $ on 2008, Fell back Down to only 8,950 $ on 2009 (a - 1,486 $ reduction), where it Stagnated even on 2010 (9.000 $). In fact, Turkey has a Worse situation in Poverty even than ...Latin American Mexico, (which never dared claim to enter inside USA !)... (SEE CoE GRAPHIC)

Inflation rate annualy orsened on 2010 with + 2,3% More, growing from 6,3 % in 2009, up to 8,6 % in 2010, (while OECD's average is only 1,9%).

- Typical of Turkish Economy's reported main Weakness : a "Boost and Burst" cycle started with Inflation already High since 2005 (+7,7%), boomed from 2006 (+9,7%) up to 2008 (+10,1%), and, despite a relative deceleration during the 2009 Global Crisis (+6,5%), it re-started... Higher in the new circle than in the past : Nearly +8% on 2010.
 
- In consequence, the Deficit in Turkey's Current Accounts  jumped  from -2,2 % on 2009 up to ...-6,5 % on 2010 in terms of GDP percentage, i.e. it was Multiplied becoming almost 3 times heavier (X 300 % !), according to the latest OECD data. And the Trendfvb obviously heads towards a Worsening : From - 5,3% in the First half of 2010, Turkey's CA Deficit grew up to - 7% and even - 8,2% during the second and third quarters of the year, respectively...

=> In consequence, Turkey's gross Debt, just for the Central Government, grew from 275 Billions $ on 2009, up to almost 304 Billions $ on 2010, (i.e. adding nearly + 35 more Billions $ of Debt in inly 1 Year !) Thus, in comparison, Turkey has such a Debt much Bigger even than .. Mexico, which, (despite its much more numerousPopulation : 135 instead of 74 Millions), didn't owe on 2010 but "only" -2B4 compared to Turkey's -304 Billions $ of Debt..   

>>> In such condidtions, - "Unemployment ... has risen from 6,8% to 10,12% during "normal"  years, and reached 14% during .. 2008" in Turkey, warned USA 's sources, (i.e. reaching almost the ...Double of OECD's average, which is "only" 8,1%).
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On Currencies, Turkey seems engaged in a kind of systematic "Monetary War" (or Dumping) against EU Markets since 2002/2003, but not vis a vis USA, since the Turkish Lira persists to be regularly Devaluated vis a vis the €uro, but not the US. Dollar $ (See GRAPHICS). This trend obviously serves USA Investors, but threatens EU Investors with a "Declining" value  :

- "Foreign investors in Turkey need to remember that they are swimming against the trend of a Declining Currency, which will diminish the value of Turkey’s ...local market returns when repatriated". In addition, "Inflation is still elevated ..., and will likely continue for the foreseeable future", warned the "Financial Professionals' Post", published by the "New York Society of Security Analysts".
 

This, (added also to a notoriously Oppressive Turkish policy against Human and Social Rights), might explain some Threats to attract certain Low-Tech. Industries' Outsourcing far away from EU's Heart, (f.ex. Renault's mass low-cost cars, managed by a company of the Turkish Army !, etc).
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+ => - Moreover,  "Turkey is still the most Volatile index in the group" of countries", and its data "indicate substantial degrees of Risk, but there is also a large amount of residual country-specific Risk", concluded the New York Publication for Financial Professionals (See supra).  - "Because the country-specific Risk is so large (32.1%), accessing it is Less appealing than it would at first appear", it warned.

"If we regress Turkey’s returns versus other emerging market benchmarks..., we again find that Turkey does Not add value to a diversified EM or BRIC portfolio (the alpha to the BRIC benchmarks is even Negative), but it does appear to improve a cap-weighted World portfolio, a US-only portfolio, and even a Frontier markets portfolio", FPP concluded.
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=> Turkey is considered by UK's "Economist" Media as an "Emerging" market country, in the same category as ... Colombia, Egypt, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc.

With the obvious difference that neither Colombia or Indonesia, nor any other of this kind of so-called "Emerging" market Countries, doesn''t claim to become "Member" of, and enter inside the USA or the EU...