In Local Election, a Referendum on Turkey’s Leader

Tim Arango

Ceylan Yeginsu 

As the campaign bus moved through Istanbul’s traffic, the cityscape blurred: construction cranes, new shopping malls and boutiques, a billboard for the luxury department store Harvey Nichols — all signposts of a city more populous than some European countries, vastly reshaped under the Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Inside the bus was a secular candidate to be the next mayor, Mustafa Sarigul, who for years has led Istanbul’s most affluent district, Sisli, and is now the greatest hope among Mr. Erdogan’s opponents. They see Sunday’s mayoral elections as the first step in loosening the hold that Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A.K.P., has over Turkish politics.

Turkey: An Action Movie without a ‘Good Guy’

Ayse Gunaysu

In Turkey today, a very high-tempo, high-tension action scene is unfolding, with a life-or-death fight at the top of the state apparatus. A volcano of corruption is erupting once more, releasing all the filth from below the surface. We’re seeing the sons of cabinet members being taken from their homes, alongside prominent businessmen, and put into custody; the mass removal of middle- to high-ranking security officers; and comprehensive changes in the juridical organization. But there are no prospects for a better Turkey, because both parties of this fierce fight belong to the “bad guy” club—the ruling AK Party and the informal but all-mighty clandestine organization of the “Gulen community.”

The audience is deprived of the expectation of a reward for watching these horrors play out. There is no hope for the emergence of a good guy, who will punish the bad and set things right. There is no need to wait for it, because there is no good guy at all in this action film. None of the already-few forces of democracy in Turkey have the slightest role to play in the plot.