Köse concluded by saying that the terrorist attack in Ankara will not have a major effect on the votes as the people are already polarized in four different directions; however, it will consolidate the poles.

The results of the elections show that the AK Party received another election victory.

As the electorate goes to the polls for a critical repeat election on Nov. 1, Turkey is longing for the virtuous circle of political and economic stability it became used to between 2002 and 2015.

The Turkish people need to dig deep to find their shared values and restore their sense of reality in order to make room for a new kind of politics with peace, democracy and national interests in its core.

The opposition parties neither signal a structural and managerial change in their parties nor offer a different vision for the future in the event they lose the March 30 elections.

One of the reasons why political jargon is framed as if it were a general election is because of the Dec. 17 operation that caused local elections to be pushed out of its normal process.

What is more important is that if the struggling actors switch to embracing and democratic statements, it is possible they will have already lost credibility in the eyes of the public.

Identifying the Dec. 17 operation as an attack against the AK Party government by the Gülen Movement, conservative voters are likely to rally behind the Turkish prime minister in upcoming local elections. Consequently, the controversy might increase the ruling party's popularity among its core constituencies

After the Dec. 17 operation, the local elections that are supposed to take place on March 30 have come to mean much more than local elections.

There are many reasons to be hopeful about the election results in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After a very long time the Social Democratic Party (SDP) received the highest number of votes in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, and on the state level pulling in interethnic votes by re-electing Ivo Komsic, the Croat member of the Presidency. The election of Bakir Izetbegovic, the son of the legendary leader of the Bosniak independence movement, Alija Izetbegovic, is also a positive development. Bakir Izetbegovic is considered a moderate compared to the former Bosniak member of the Presidency, Haris Silajdzic, who regularly spoke of putting an end to Republika Srpska, further straining relations between Sarajevo and Banja Luka.

SETA PUBLIC LECTURE By  Ali T. Akarca  Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago Chair Talip Küçükcan SETA Date: June 23, 2009 Tuesday  Time: 16.00 – 18.00 Venue: SETA Foundation, Ankara

As we enter the last six weeks of the US election, all eyes are on the two presidential candidates. Their performance from now until Nov. 4 will be crucial to determining the next president of the US. In this world of postmodern politics, however, no one knows what a good performance is.

Election campaigns in Turkey are in full swing. The political parties have mobilized all of their resources to get more voters on their side. But the July 22 election appears to be more than just politics as usual. Four main factors underlie the current election campaign. The first is “power politics.” All political parties are vying for a greater share at the ballot box. Political leaders are engaged in heated debates, accusing one another of not representing the center. The center keeps shifting from ultranationalist to social democrat and conservative. Promises range from the reasonable to the far-fetched. All political actors are desperately trying to gain the people’s confidence.  

We are currently living in a state of uncertainty under which we are not clear as to whether the expression “Turkey is having an election on July 22” is a mere assertion or a decision. Apparently not every decision to hold elections naturally leads to an election atmosphere.