Yoshie: > Both sides are "wrong" in the sense of both being for > neoliberal capitalism and imperialism, though nuances > exist. But one side is democratically elected, while > the other side isn't,
Unfortunately, this is not the case Yoshie. Neither side is democratically elected, thanks to the election laws imposed by the Military after the September 12, 1980 military takeover. The Military changed the election laws in such as way that the party they put together would win the election or so they hoped. To do this, they imposed the requirement that to enter the National Assembly each party must get at least ten percent of the national vote no matter how they do in each of the provinces. So if a party wins the election in a province, say, with more than ninety percent of the provincial votes but does not meet the ten percent barrier nationally and another party wins ten percent of the provicial votes but meets the national ten percent barrier, then the latter sends all of the provincial representatives to the National Assembly. In the 2002 election only two parties met the ten percent national barier: AKP and CHP. About forty percent of the electorate did not vote. AKP got about thirty of the votes which translates roughly to twentyfive percent of all of the electorate. But this gave them an overwhelming majority in the National Assembly because of the stupid election laws the Military imposed in 1980. If you call this democratic, then yes, AKP was democratically elected. Best, Sabri ____________________________________________________________________________________ Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A. http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545367
