JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT RULING PARTY’S RATING FALLS IN TURKEY

Noyan Tapan
March 30, 2009

YEREVAN, MARCH 30, NOYAN TAPAN. "The world financial-economic crisis
has had an impact on political processes in Turkey," Turkologist Ruben
Safrastian said at the March 30 press conference. In his words, the
impact was revealed in the local self-government elections held lately,
when the Justice and Development ruling party received unprecedentedly
fewer votes than it had recorded in the parliamentary elections. "Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan considered it a persuasion by the people,
according to which changes should be done in government’s staff,"
the Turkologist said. According to him, a great part of voters were
disappointed with the ruling party because of the increase of the
number of unemployed due to the economic crisis, as well as because
of corruption scandals.

R. Safrastian also said that Turkey’s local self-government elections
were striking as the votes of the Grey Wolves nationalist party
increased as compared with the previous elections. And the other
important peculiarity, according to the Turkologist, is that the
Kurdistan Party won in the regions populated with Kurds, in particular,
the Kurdish candidate won the Diarbekir Mayor’s elections.
From: Baghdasarian