Says Turkologist Ruben Safrastyan
Scheduling new early parliamentary elections in Turkey was a requirement by the law and it is exercised: within 45 days after the elections no coalition government was formed, therefore, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared new elections. Ruben Safrastyan considers this event going on in Turkey’s domestic politics normal, however, notices that after the parliamentary elections in June, this was what the head of the ruling party in Turkey strives: he failed to gather enough votes to form the majority in the parliament to provide at least 45 percent of the voters. “He replies on these elections. He thinks that he would gather more voted in these elections,” says the Turkologist.
He found it difficult to say whether Erdoğan’s desire would come true or not, he notes, “There are polls of three centers, which show that the “Justice and Development” party does not reach its goal. It should gather some forty-five percent while they had gathered forty-one.” To our question of whether Erdoğan this time will try to attract the Armenian community to his side, Ruben Safrastyan replied, “The Armenian community is so small that Erdoğan does not seeks to attract it to his side. They are solving another task: the fight is going on for the electorates of extremist, nationalist layer, who are many, and they had given their votes for the Nationalist Movement Party in the elections on June 7. But now, my mentioned polls show that the votes of this party have been reduced, and perhaps it is due to the fact that Erdoğan’s party has become overly extreme too.
But, on the other hand, the “Justice and Development” party started a war with the Kurds. A significant number of Kurds, who earlier voted for Erdoğan, now they are disappointed in him, and already will vote for the “People’s democracy” pro-Kurdish party.” Based on the polls in the meantime, according to the Turkologist, we can single out two important things, “Firstly, all three polls show that the “Justice and Development” party will not exceed the threshold of forty-five, secondly, the pro-Kurdish party’s positions become further strengthened. On the other hand, we should not forget the circumstance that there are still two months prior to the elections and a lot can change during these two months,” he says. As to how the Armenian Genocide issue will be evolved in Turkey in the meantime, Mr. Safrastyan responds to this frame of mind, “We see that the domestic political life in Turkey is escalated, there is a Kurdish issue, a constant force is being used against the Kurds, they respond and so on. Armenians are less remembered under these conditions. But, on the other hand, the historical experience shows that when the political situation in Turkey is getting worse, Armenians are always affected.” In the meantime, in the domestic politics, Erdoğan encounters challenges in the foreign policy. Ruben Safrastyan says, “He, being a very indiscriminate and charismatic politician, imposes his style in the foreign policy. He makes such moves that harm Turkey itself because during Erdoğan tenure, Turkey’s aim is to become the leader in the region, but they do not have adequate resources for it, both historical, economic, political and moral. This means that Turkey has adopted an adventure politics in his foreign policy and Turkey increasingly sinks deeper into the problems of the Middle East, and it increasingly becomes dangerous for Turkey.”
HRIPSIME HOVHANNISYAN,
“Aravot” daily
