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ANKARA: Bahceli Asks For New Voter Count

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  • ANKARA: Bahceli Asks For New Voter Count

    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."

    --Boundary_(ID_YpQJlK5QhTbWlfFEg4CVAQ )--

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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