Today, 52 million Turks cast their votes in local elections. Although the vote won’t affect the parliamentary majority of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the elections are perceived to be a popularity contest for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is mired in a major corruption scandal. Social media users have reported that they’ve never seen such long lines at polling stations. It is expected that these elections will witness the highest participation rates in any election in Turkish history. It seems like Turkey has a chance to change.
Supporters of Prime Minister Erdogan at an election rally, July 2007 (Photo by Ramdam / Wikimedia Commons)
Some observers, including Al-Monitor columnist Mustafa Akyol, argue that Turkey’s local elections matter because they will act as a predictor for this summer’s presidential election in which Prime Minister Erdogan is expected to run. Today’s vote, observers say, will also help to predict the parliamentary elections scheduled for June 2015 (but may be held at the same time as the presidential election).
But several reasons might make today’s local elections and voting in general an irrelevant practice in the Turkish political context…
Barın Kayaoğlu is finishing his doctorate in history at the University of Virginia. He was recently a Smith Richardson Foundation fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University. You can follow him on Twitter (@barinkayaoglu) and Facebook (Barın Kayaoğlu).
If last summer’s Gezi Park protests in Turkey proved anything, it was the power of social media, especially Twitter. While mainstream media outlets kept quiet after the mass protests broke out on May 31, Twitter users reported live from the demonstrations with texts, pictures, and videos. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose harsh rhetoric added fuel to the Gezi fire, called Twitter “a scourge.”
Part of the reason why the prime minister lashed out against the social media network was because his party could not respond to protesting Twitter users effectively. It looks like Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has learned from its shortcomings.
Barın Kayaoğlu is finishing his doctorate in history at the University of Virginia. He was recently a Smith Richardson Foundation fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University. You can follow him on Twitter (@barinkayaoglu) and Facebook (Barın Kayaoğlu).
To the casual observer, pictures of ordinary Iranians celebrating the election of Hassan Rouhani as president must have been a strange one. After all, only four years ago, the allegations of fraud in the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had caused massive protests in Iran.
Yet Iran’s impressive voter turnout (estimated at 75 percent, which is fifteen points higher than the turnout in the U.S. presidential election last year), gave the lie to much of the criticism. The celebrations further refuted the critics.
But why are Iranians so excited about Hassan Rouhani?
The answer partly lies in Rouhani’s background. The jurist-turned-foreign policy expert has the right credentials to serve Iran as president for the next four years. Before his election, Rouhani was Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei’s representative in the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s most important policy-making body on matters of national defense and foreign affairs. Rouhani also led the team that negotiated Iran’s nuclear program with Britain, France, and Germany in 2003-5. He completed a doctorate in law at Glasgow Caledonian University and speaks several foreign languages. In short, Rouhani has the experience and skills to improve Iran’s international standing.
This background probably helped him with his election. As other experts have pointed out, Rouhani’s victory is a signal that the people of Iran want the standoff with the outside world over their country’s nuclear program to be resolved peacefully. Even though the supreme leader has ultimate say in Iran’s national security affairs, it is the president who serves as the country’s main broker with the outside world. Among all candidates on the ballot, Rouhani was the best man to improve his nation’s international standing.
These are some of the obvious reasons why Hassan Rouhani’s victory is good news. But there are also intangible (yet critically important) factors that make this election bode well for Iran and the world. Rouhani is not a radical reformer but he is not a hardliner or a puppet of Khamanei either. Despite his status as an “inside man” within the Islamic Republic, the new president received substantial support from moderates and reformists during his campaign. For the next four years, Rouhani will be able to talk to both the establishment and the reformists with ease.
That frankness will come in very handy. Iran may not be a Western-style democracy but it is no North Korea either. The Iranian media frequently complains about the country’s problems and expresses popular frustrations. But many of those grievances probably don’t reach the supreme leader (a frequent problem in authoritarian systems). At the moment, Iran actually needs a president who could level with the supreme leader as well as ordinary Iranians. Rouhani strikes me as somebody who could fulfill that role.
Iran faces some very tough choices in the days ahead. When Hassan Rouhani takes charge in August, he will have some hard decisions to make. The good news is that he seems capable of making them. Right now, Iranians have reason to celebrate.
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Barın Kayaoğlu is finishing his Ph.D. in history at the University of Virginia and is a Smith Richardson Foundation fellow in International Security Studies at Yale University. He welcomes all comments, questions, and exchanges. To contact him, click here.
