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Politics in Turkey Turkish Political Parties -- Right, Left, Center? Is this the light at the end of the Turkish political tunnel? Or will it be the light that fails? The AKP's Party Logo Turkish Politics of the Right and Left... only! Turkish political parties (and the tendencies of the voters that the Parties try to woo) are not always easy to understand -- at least not for us. So when we find a good 'Visual Aid' to help us in the effort, we're grateful. We found several in a recent Hürriyet Gazetesi article about "Social and Political Preferences" in Turkey -- based on research done by Doçent Dr. Ali Çarkoğlu (Sabancı University) and Prof. Dr. Ersin Kolaycıoğlu (Işık University). In the chart above, for example, Çarkoğlu and Kolaycıoğlu ranked the major Turkish political parties from Right to Left ideologically -- from Conservative to Liberal. So, for instance, you can see that there is no political party in Turkey that is more right-wing than the religious-right AKP (Turkey's ruling majority party) -- led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Politically-speaking, PM Erdoğan's AKP is roughly equivalent to President George W. Bush's Republican Party -- though the different religious affiliations of the two party leaders may interfere with the analogy... You'll also observe that the Deniz Baykal-led CHP party (which is the only real [albeit very weak] opposition to the ruling AKP in the current Turkish Parliament) is a left-wing liberal party -- rather left, by comparison, of Tony Blair's redefined New Labourites. But the graphic reveals more. Do you notice that there are no middle-of-the-road parties shown on the chart? That's because, according to Doctors Çarkoğlu and Kolaycıoğlu, there aren't any in Turkey at this time. Turkish Parties and Turkish voters too, they are telling us, are polarized Left and Right. With a plurality of party voters tending toward the far religious Right. There's more to the Turkish political story than can be depicted in a single visual aid, we know... but that chart makes us uneasy. Because it wasn't so long ago that the major Turkish political parties were all middle-of-the-road -- and those at the extreme ends of the ideological spectrum were merely 'fringe' parties. How does that old Bob Dylan song go...? "And the first one now, Will later be last. For the times they are a-changin'." Sure hope we'll be around for the next favorable cycle... Related: Final Results Charts for the 2007 National Elections What the Turkish National Election Results of 2007 may fortell About the 2007 Pre-Election Polls The Next Turkish President Must Not Be.... Bang, bang! The AKP gets shot down (for the moment) for strong-arm tactics When Worlds Collide -- Kemalist Democracy and the AKP 2/2 Threats to Turkey's Well-Being - Terrorism and Religious Excess Steering Clear of Politics and Religion, this time... Turkish 'Religious Attitudes' and Politics Caught Between 2 Bad Choices -- The Turkish Presidential Selection, 2007 Countdown To A Turkish Secularist's Nightmare, Presidential Selection Day 2007 Turkish National Pre-Election Polls 2002 Local elections 2004 -- No 'Girl Power' (see yerel seçimler) International Study with an Outhouse Smell 'Troubles in Turkish Paradise' Language-Guide LPT's Geopolitical pages... Post your comment...»

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