On 5/4/07, Sabri Oncu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
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.
It's interesting that the law that was meant to favor the
military-backed party ended up being the opposite. Still and all, the
system that we have here in the USA practically prevents emergence,
let alone victory, of any new party, and the system in Japan
over-represents the less populated but reliably conservative districts
(cf.
<http://www.fairvote.org/pr/global/japandisparity.htm>). Look at
various systems of representation (at
<http://www.fairvote.org/pr/global/country/index.htm>), and each has
its own problems.
--
Yoshie
