Austin Bay on Turkey:
Nov. 1's snap national election results put Turkish democracy, cultural vitality and Ataturk's legacy at risk.
The threat to Turkish democratic institutions is a man notoriously jealous of Ataturk, current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The snap election gave Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, AKP, overwhelming control of parliament (316 of 550 seats). The AKP had controlled parliament since 2002, but in the June 7 election it lost its one-party majority. Political haggling among opposition parties, including Ataturk's Republican Peoples Party, the CHP, failed to produce a coalition government; a new election was necessary.
However, in the intervening month's domestic terrorist incidents, the fitful war with the Islamic State in the Levant and Syria's violent chaos dominated Turkish politics.
Erdogan portrayed himself as the only leader capable of addressing Turkey's deteriorating security situation.
Oh, and don't forget old-fashioned voter manipulation.
I was going to write a post on this, but Bay knows the subject much better and so saves me the work. Read it all, as the expression goes.
UPDATE: Part of the instability was blackmail (tip to Instapundit):
[Evidence] is now mounting that the upsurge in the migratory wave was the result of deliberate efforts by Erdogan to facilitate and push the flow of migrants in order to blackmail and punish the EU into supporting him.
Could be. I did wonder if Russia and Turkey might cooperate--perhaps it was by using migrants as weapons--for their own separate objectives.
