BAHCELI ASKS FOR NEW VOTER COUNT

Hurriyet
Dec 19 2008
Turkey

ANKARA – According to the Supreme Election Board, or YSK, more than
48 million citizens will vote during the March 29 local elections,
constituting 6 million more voters than the general elections in
2007. Devlet Bahceli of the Nationalist Movement Party demands a new
electoral list

The confusion over the increase of 6 million registered voters can
only be solved by a new voter registration, which is needed to save
the legitimacy of upcoming local elections, according to a political
leader.

"There is a need for correction … to prevent a post-election
debate. They should be controversy-free elections. There is obviously
a problem that has to be fixed before the elections," said Devlet
Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, in a
meeting with media yesterday. "But postponing the elections would
not be good. I do not approve of postponing elections."

According to the Supreme Election Board, or YSK, more than 48 million
citizens will vote during the March 29 local elections, constituting
6 million more voters than the general elections in 2007. The YSK
will examine the increase and other assertions, while the Turkish
Board of Statistics, or TUÄ°K, said the confusion stemmed from a new
address-based census system.

Bahceli said the upcoming local elections were important and its
results would point to the country’s future ruling party. "These
elections will have two major results: they will disclose the next
government, and in the case of serious decrease in votes, it will
cause the ruling party to set its house in order," Bahceli said,
adding that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party had been
walking on air since the July 22 elections, in which they received
47 percent of votes.

"For Erdogan, the 47 percent represents the national will, but the
remaining people have no meaning. He is trying to zero the will of
the rest. His head is in the clouds. Instead of meeting the media the
way I do here, he prefers talk to them onboard. It is perhaps more
enjoyable for him. But this is something I have never tried," he said.

When asked about the recent polemic between him and Deniz Baykal, the
leader of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, over the latter’s
initiative to register women who wear a black chador in his party,
Bahceli said he did not need to create an argument, but was curious
about the motive of this surprising move.

"No one can say anything to the personal choices of people and we
cannot have a say about the clothes of these people who joined the
CHP. But if this is a new sort of opening to the black chador, then I,
like many others, even from the CHP itself, have to ask what kind of
an opening this is," he said.

Bahceli said there had already been an effort by some forces from the
across the ocean, such as the United States, to move Turkey toward
moderate Islam. He said Baykal was performing his role in this as the
leader of the left and asked his political rival to openly explain
this move. He said, "The right wing move has been completed. Is Baykal
playing his role in this plan?

"Politics over one’s attire is wrong. We are waiting for Baykal’s
explanation as to where he and his party are floating, and what
brought the new concept of the ‘left in chador,’" he said.

PM sees the reality Bahceli also spoke about Erdogan’s radical change
on the Kurdish issue, his approach toward the Democratic Society
Party, or DTP, and Erdogan’s comments that he shared the views of
Bahceli on these sensitive issues, repeating his motto of one state
and one nation.

Bahceli said it is purely a re-awakening by the prime minister as he
has begun to see the realities. "We see the prime minister has begun
to understood where Turkey was headed, since his visit to Diyarbakır
in 2005," he said. He said the problem in southeastern Anatolia is
socio-economic and his party will run in each city in the region.

Ashamed of apology to Armenians When asked about the prominent
intellectuals’ initiative to apologize to Armenians over the
incidents of 1915, Bahceli said he had felt ashamed on behalf
of Turkish people. "What was pleasant though was to see so many
counterstatements that represent the national stance," he said.

On the Iraqi journalist’s protest against U.S. President George
W. Bush and the thrown shoes, Bahceli differed from many other Turkish
politicians, saying the protester was right. "[Bush] should pray,
some other things could have been thrown as well."

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress