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| WHO WILL BE PRESIDENT??? |
| T PAPADOPULOUS |
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26% |
[ 7 ] |
| CHRISTOFIAS |
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38% |
[ 10 ] |
| KASOULIDES |
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26% |
[ 7 ] |
| NONE OF THE ABOVE |
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7% |
[ 2 ] |
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| Total Votes : 26 |
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| Author |
Message |
pg
Deputy
Joined: 17 Jan 2006
Posts: 1485
Location: Cyprus
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I have a feeling both DISY and AKEL takes the COLA debate with some salt... At the same time I think it is only AKEL that would actually have the power to do something about COLA...
In terms of right and left I think many DISY voters now are trying to mentally prepare themselves for voting AKEL in the second round - in case Kasoulides does not make it. I do think that AKEL voters would have difficulties voting Kasoulides - mainly because of the right/left stamps. |
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cypezokyli
Ministerial
Joined: 20 Dec 2005
Posts: 2344
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well polls up to now show that the voters of dysi are more mature in that sense.
it seems that they are (finally) willing to vote for a leftist,
while the akel supporters appear to be more trapped in the 1974 syndrom |
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murataga
Villager
Joined: 06 Aug 2007
Posts: 16
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| erolz wrote: |
My simplistic view of things.
In Turkey you have two main forces in contention. You have the deep state and you have the 'reformers'.
The deep state is primarily the military (but also other elements in judiciary and other state organs) and their principal motivating factor is maintain the 'preminance' of the military in political affairs as protectors of the secular state.
The 'reformers' are primarily (and ironically in many ways) the AKP party and their principal motivating factor is reforming of Turkey in order to reduce the power of the deep state and the preeminence of the military in political life. There is some concern that this 'reforming' may just be a means to another end (remove power of deep state and then islamify politics in Turkey) but to date their actions have primarily been those of reforming not islamification and those reforms remain even if their end objective is something other than this.
In essence the reformers have gained considerable ground at the expense of the deep state, but the rate and degree of what the reformers can do is still circumscribed by the deep state. They can only effect changes so fast and so far without risking direct confrontation with the deep state.
In North Cyprus there are mirror forces to those in Turkey. Denktash and his political heirs were / are the north cypriot forces aligned closest with the turkish deep state and Talat and his party and political allies are the forces most closely aligned with the reforming forces in Turkey.
Just as the reformers gained ascendancy within Turkey with the AK Party gaining a ruling non coalition election victory at the expense of the deep state and political forces allied with it (and subsequently the presidency also), so Talat also gained ascendancy over Denktash and his political heirs in the North.
Or to put it as simply as possible Denkatsh was tied to deep state / military in Turkey and Talat to the AK Party / reformers.
Just as the AK Party is limited in pursuing it's agendas by the limits of how fast and how far it can push the deep state / military, so Talat is limited in what he can achieve by the same limits. Talat is ALSO limited in what he can do by the behavior and approach of the Greek Cypriot leadership. There is imo still some hope that a non TP lead Greek Cypriot leadership will not limit him as much as the current TP led one does. |
Thank you for your insightful commentary erolz. I would also be very interested in getting your viewpoint as to what in particular were/are the reforms of the AKP government. |
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erolz
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 4195
Location: Kyrenia / Girne
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| murataga wrote: |
| Thank you for your insightful commentary erolz. I would also be very interested in getting your viewpoint as to what in particular were/are the reforms of the AKP government. |
To be honest I am no expert on Turkey. My main perception of the AK Party as 'reformist' is probably more from western media that does not seem able to say AK Party without calling it reformist, rather than knowledge of actual reforms they have made. As I understand it (and my understanding is pretty superficial) the AK party since coming to power has made major economic reforms along the lines of liberalising and privatisation of state owned companies as well as the floating of the TL on open markets, though I believe these reforms were actually initiated by the previous ecevit government. They have also made major reforms to the penal code in Turkey I believe. It is also my understanding that they hope to continue with reforms including constitutional reform re the mechanisms for electing the President, though such reforms are harder to make as they require a 2/3 majority rather than a simple majority. They are also I believe in the process of looking to reform the '301' laws.
As I say most of my perception comes indirectly from the western media. Below is a couple of examples of typical western media descriptions of the AK Party.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9516424
| Quote: |
| Mr Erdogan's government has also modernised the constitution. It has shaken up the judiciary, updated the penal code and nudged the army towards civilian control for the first time. The AK has taken tentative steps to improve the treatment of minorities, especially Turkey's 14m Kurds, although fighting against guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has flared up anew. |
http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029394365&a=KCountryProfile&aid=1019745009611
| Quote: |
| The opening of negotiations was possible because the current Turkish Government and its predecessor drove forward, through 9 packages of legislative and constitutional amendments, a range of necessary reforms designed to meet the Copenhagen political criteria - including the abolition of the death penalty, new protections against torture, greater freedom of expression, and increased respect for minorities. According to the 2004 European Commission's report on Turkey's progress towards accession, these reforms have 'clearly addressed major issues and highlighted a growing consensus in favour of liberal democracy'. Further, the report notes that there has been 'substantial institutional convergence in Turkey towards European standards'. |
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moonskin
Mukhtar/is
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 515
Location: Freiburg, Germany
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Before anybody color me anything though their stereotype collection, let me tell you that I am an agnostic atheist (and kind of a militant one at that) and my flattery towards Erdogan is, yes, despite this!
Erdogan is one of the smartest and most capable guys to come to rule this country. There is no question about it. He is not perfect and we can start listing the stupid things he has done in his past. Many of my friends doesn't really believe that I could praise this guy like that but this is mostly due to the fact that people are HEAVILY conditioned for certain characterizations provided to them by the media.
But one just has to consider how he managed to get out of the latest situation with the US concerning the Genocide and Northern Iraq issues. How the world, by which I mostly mean EU + US, was looking at the relationship between Kurds and Turks a couple of months ago and how it is now. And what happened to the Genocide draft at the congress. Everybody is now saying that Turkey has the right to make an operation into Northern Iraq and it is their right to protect themselves. It is sufficient to check the headlines of the European and American newspapers 2 months ago on the matter to see the difference!Let's face it people, Erdogan managed to change the entire world to take place on Turkey's side! Even Deniz Baykal accepted this some weeks ago (which was interesting, but explainable since CHP congress is approaching).
What was really striking was the progress report on Turkey as it is regularly prepared by the EU. At the press conference where the report was announced, Olli Rehn and his fellows were as if trying to hide all the negative things as much as possible and they were really working so hard to say positive things about Turkey, despite there were issues as serious as the involvement of state officials into the case of Hrant Dink murder and directly (and openly) preventing justice taking place, the issues related to the recent behaviours of the police to the citizens and many unexplained suspected deaths at the police stations etc. Actually, I think that Greek Cypriots should be afraid of this guy, much much much more than they were from the previous governments of Turkey!
***
When Gul became the president of the country, he made a speech (which is the standard protocol) at the parliament. He did say important things and for the people following AKP, this speech actually contained the roadmap AKP had in mind. He said that, in order to carry the country into a more respectable status, at least to a level comparable with the members of EU27, progress in three main aspects is necessary:
1. A strong democracy,
2. A strong economy,
3. A strong army.
If you consider the above order, you will notice that it is necessary to achieve (2), in order to achieve (3); and it is necessary to achieve (1) in order to achieve (2) (since Turkey has no (identified) petrol reserves  ).
More than the laws, which are, let's face it, just pieces of papers and nothing more before mechanisms which ensure that those laws are applied, the crisis between AKP and military which took place in April was important. It sure showed that there are serious problems in the Turkish democracy in the sense that some cornerstones of the Turkish system still have not managed to fit to their "right locations". However, the fact that they passed that now, without a physical intervention like taking the control of the parliament, was an examination well-passed. It does not mean that Turkey suddenly became a democratic country but it does mean that they have made a BIG step towards that direction since the ultimate decider in the democracy, THE PEOPLE, has clearly made a decision on the 22nd of July. Again, I have to stress that the behaviour of AKP at the ultimatum by the military which came on the 17 April was beautifully smart and very well thought. Turkish generals "lost" for the first time in the history of Turks!
After this "go ahead" kind of approval, AKP announced the next big step for goal (1) in the above list: A new constitution for the Republic of Turkey. The first draft is to be announced by the middle of December and we will have a good idea how brave Erdogan is going to be - so far he was admirable and we will see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Since the current constitution is heavily handicapped for democracy, there will be lots of room for improvement but let's leave those details out for now because I am tired 
However, I will say this before I sign off this message:
After having spent some years in Turkey (and writing this message from Ankara actually), my personal observation is that the 3-item list above should be extended by adding:
0. A strong education system,
on TOP of it. Unfortunately, in general the Turkish people are not very well-educated and even the ones which are educated had to go through a not-so-good education system heavily based on a nationalist Kemalism propaganda. I am talking at the levels of primary school and high school. There are issues of preventing female children of going to school in the eastern parts and this is still very common today. Without making this argument much longer, Turkish population represents a poorly educated mass bombarded with nationalist propaganda while irritated by the PKK terror on the one hand, and islamist propaganda irritated by the unfair situation in the middle east for the Muslims as a result of Bush's insanity, on the other. From time to time, this makes me to see this "mass" as a bomb ready to explode and the only solution is through a difficult reform on the Turkish educational system which can start giving its fruits only after many many years.
And lastly:
I can see that there are people around who hate Erdogan for pulling the plug on Denktas and his idiot son's idiot "party" DP, which has recently lost all of the settler votes to the semi-official settler party ORP established by Erdogan and it is almost as clear as the moon is in the middle of a Mediterranean night that they will remain outside of the parliament after the next election in north, for which I am not sad at all!  |
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pg
Deputy
Joined: 17 Jan 2006
Posts: 1485
Location: Cyprus
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| pg 28/11 wrote: |
Back to the subject,
Since there is quite a clear trend, I'll predict the future polls and real election rounds...
DEC
TP 30.0%
IK 28.0%
DC 29.6%
JAN
TP 29.5%
IK 28.8%
DC 29.6%
FEB - poll
TP 29.4%
IK 29.0%
DC 30.6%
FEB - 1st round
TP 29.9%
IK 32.0%
DC 32.6%
FEB - 2nd round
IK 44.0%
DC 52.6% |
Back to the subject again, or, time to split this topic?
Anyway, here is the results of a poll presented yesterday by RIK:
TP 30.5%
IK 28.0%
DC 30.0%
(DC to win the second round clearly.)
It seems it is time for Talat to start thinking about life after Tassos..., or are there Turkish Cypriot elections coming up too?
Last edited by pg on Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:22 am; edited 1 time in total |
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moonskin
Mukhtar/is
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 515
Location: Freiburg, Germany
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| pg wrote: |
Back to the subject again, or, time to split this topic?
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Erol, what has happened to your team of moderators man? Noone seems to be policing around any more, except city who seems to have a busier job in Limassol than in Germany. I hope you didn't fire the rest of them, or did you? 
| Quote: |
Anyway, here is the results of a poll presented yesterday by RIK:
TP 30.5%
IK 28.0%
DC 30.0%
(DC to win the second round clearly.)
It seems it is time for Talat to start thinking about live after Tassos..., or are there Turkish Cypriot elections coming up too? |
No. Presidential elections are on April 2010. By the way, since we have a (semi-)parliamentary system in north, the only interesting thing about the presidential elections is that we are actually choosing our top negotiator. Apart from that president in our system is kind of  |
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erolz
Site Admin
Joined: 11 Aug 2005
Posts: 4195
Location: Kyrenia / Girne
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| moonskin wrote: |
| Erol, what has happened to your team of moderators man? |
Moose has stepped down as a moderator. Dhav is still a moderator but has other things going on in his life currently. Alexandros has not been around for some time now. Me city and bro are still about. Really we need to appoint a new mod or two, but things have been pretty quiet recently so have not got round to it to be honest.
| moonskin wrote: |
Noone seems to be policing around any more, except city who seems to have a busier job in Limassol than in Germany. I hope you didn't fire the rest of them, or did you? |
Not sure what 'policing' needs doing? If you want the thread split I will try but looking at it I am not sure on what lines the thread would be split ? Anyway if you want the thread split PM me an idea of along what lines and ill do my best. |
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moonskin
Mukhtar/is
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 515
Location: Freiburg, Germany
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| erolz wrote: |
| moonskin wrote: |
| Erol, what has happened to your team of moderators man? |
Moose has stepped down as a moderator. Dhav is still a moderator but has other things going on in his life currently. Alexandros has not been around for some time now. Me city and bro are still about. Really we need to appoint a new mod or two, but things have been pretty quiet recently so have not got round to it to be honest.
| moonskin wrote: |
Noone seems to be policing around any more, except city who seems to have a busier job in Limassol than in Germany. I hope you didn't fire the rest of them, or did you? |
Not sure what 'policing' needs doing? If you want the thread split I will try but looking at it I am not sure on what lines the thread would be split ? Anyway if you want the thread split PM me an idea of along what lines and ill do my best. |
Nothing; I was just using the moment to ask whereabouts of other people, especially brother's, who seem to have disappeared completely.
I don't care about splitting the thread, you should ask this to pg who seem to be the one actually interested in splitting it. |
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moonskin
Mukhtar/is
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 515
Location: Freiburg, Germany
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| pg wrote: |
Anyway, here is the results of a poll presented yesterday by RIK:
TP 30.5%
IK 28.0%
DC 30.0%
(DC to win the second round clearly.)
It seems it is time for Talat to start thinking about life after Tassos..., or are there Turkish Cypriot elections coming up too? |
Well, now Talat is very pissed about the fact that the church has decided to involve itself into the solution process. His spoke person Ercakica, who seemed to be at least as pissed as him, yesterday claimed that church might be drawing certain frames in order to put pressure on the Greek Cypriot politicians.
I have to say that it was kind of expected. We should NOT take it for granted that once Christofias will be elected, the solution process will be a walk in the park.
On the other hand, I wonder what do the Greek Cypriot brothers think about church's recent move. |
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cypezokyli
Ministerial
Joined: 20 Dec 2005
Posts: 2344
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| Quote: |
| On the other hand, I wonder what do the Greek Cypriot brothers think about church's recent move. |
well we dont have that much information.
what does the church want to do actually ? is it this Ahmet Yonluer guy ? !!! 
in the meantime i thought pertev wanted to create his own party.
whats the political situation right now in the north anyway ? i really have no idea |
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moonskin
Mukhtar/is
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 515
Location: Freiburg, Germany
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| cypezokyli wrote: |
| Quote: |
| On the other hand, I wonder what do the Greek Cypriot brothers think about church's recent move. |
well we dont have that much information.
what does the church want to do actually ? is it this Ahmet Yonluer guy ? !!!
in the meantime i thought pertev wanted to create his own party.
whats the political situation right now in the north anyway ? i really have no idea |
Buddy, you are confusing me! I am talking about the Christian Orthodox Church man: According to the (almost all) newspapers in north*, the Greek Cypriot press has written about the announcement of Hrisostomos from Greek Orthodox Church that the church will start preparing a complete solution plan for the Cyprus problem right after the presidential election in February. It has been widely interpreted in the north as "church is stepping into the Cyprus problem as the new side and with the aim of putting constraints on the new president."
I will start a new thread about Pertev's new initiative later, gotta go now!
*http://www.kibrisgazetesi.com/popup.php/cat/2/news/49641/PageName/Ic_Haberler
http://www.yeniduzengazetesi.com/index.php/cat/1/news/13629/PageName/Haberler |
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cypezokyli
Ministerial
Joined: 20 Dec 2005
Posts: 2344
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oops..... sorry!!!!
about our church you mean.... well that one, we ve learned to ignore it
even though as an idea is not bad. invite some academics, some specialists to make a proposal.... thing is that chrysostomow knows exactly what these "academics" are going to produce. he will choose them himself to produce the outcome he wants.
as far as i know no party commented positively or negatively on this act. |
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Chapfallen
Warnings : 7
Senior Villager
Joined: 18 Sep 2006
Posts: 464
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Bullshits, we are the joke of Europe with all these lunatics, someone shut this brainless ape mouth and lock him in his church. Enough is enough.
Talat is just trying to get advantage from our stupid Talibans, I do not think what even TPap(who is also sick) can take him seriously, only Talat can benefit from this lunatics and have a reason to involve them. These persons are coming from Jehovah-Allah ass; their relation with reason was never existed.
------
Back to the subject, the Tpap malakes are already in panic and they are giving money and promises here and there but they will take from the 3 the longer, yuuuupiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I can’t wait to see Lillikas after the first round. |
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depurple
Warnings : 1
Ministerial
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Posts: 2876
Location: Australia
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Can you guarantee that all theses clowns are not in it just for the DOXA/Glory and lining their pockets with money?
In the last 50 years every politician in Cyprus has been doing this!
So will theses clown follow suit? OR will they be different? That is the $60 dollar question!
cheers |
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