An Election Worth Watching
Amidst all the last-minute campaigning here in the United States, we may be losing sight of an election that could have a significant impact on the global landscape -- the election in Turkey. While we ponder whether or not there will be a change of control in the House and Senate, public opinion polls in Turkey show that a party with ties to Islamic militants, the Justice and Development Party (AK), is on its way to defeating the current ruling coalition. The leader of this party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was previously convicted for inciting religious hatred, meaning that by Turkish law he should not even be able to hold a party post. Mr. Erdogan has refused to step down and is currently in the middle of a legal battle with the state prosecutor, which could prevent him from serving as prime minister.
Although AK claims to have cut its ties to Islamic militants, we have to question, given the current global instability, how much stock we can afford to put in that. While the Turkish government does not, itself, have nuclear weapons, the U.S. has nuclear weapons in Turkey and Istanbul is considered a hub of the world's nuclear black market. Should Turkey be governed by a party even sympathetic to Islamic militants, this only raises the probability of nuclear weapons falling into their hands. It is in the vested interest of the current regime, which has little use for Islamic militants, to keep a close watch on that black market. The potential new regime would not have those same constraints. Coupled with the recent election results in nuclear power Pakistan, where their Islamic militant party won 47 seats in Parliament, up from 2, it behooves us to pay very close attention to these two countries.
Fortunately, public opinion polls in Turkey are notoriously unreliable. It is, therefore, not unlikely that AK would be forced into a coalition government, which would provide some check on them. Although this may not be the best result for Turkey, whose recent history has been marred by divisive coalition politics, it probably is the best result for the rest of the world, barring a defeat of AK.