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Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. Turkey's Ironic Electoral Systemby Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/06/turkey-ironic-electoral-system
  Be the first of your friends to like this.To keep Kurds out of parliament, the military authors of the 1982 Turkish constitution instituted the unheard-of threshold of 10 percent, meaning that a political party that won less than that proportion of the total vote did not gain any seats. This rule has had a huge impact on Turkish political life, especially in 2002, when it transformed the AK Party's third of the votes into two thirds of the seats. It has also caused the ruling AKP party, despite its increasing popular vote, to control a steadily smaller number of the 550 seats. Note in particular the bolded numbers:
Comments: (1) In 2002 the AKP was just shy of the 367 seats needed for a 2/3s majority that would let it unilaterally change the constitution; and in 2011, it is just short of the 330 seats needed to pass a new constitution on its own in parliament, after which it would be submitted to voters in a referendum (as happened in September 2010). Still, this small shortfall is not likely to stop the AKP from writing its own constitution. Then, watch out. (2) Ironically, the Kurds found a way around the 10-percent threshold, by running as independents and then forming a voting bloc on arrival in parliament. Their number, by the way, rose from 20 in 2007 to 36 today. (3) Also ironically, as the AKP strengthens on the ground – receiving twice the number of votes yesterday than it did in 2002 – it weakens in parliament. Put differently, the 10-percent ruling that doubled AKP power in 2002 has since then worked against it. Voters have wised up and are not throwing their votes away as once they did. As Jürgen Gottschlich of Der Spiegel notes, this AKP victory "almost seems like a defeat." (June 13, 2011)
Related Topics: Turkey and Turks Remarkable Israelby Daniel Pipes http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2011/06/remarkable-israel
Be the first of your friends to like this.Israel's military prowess – operational and technological alike – is renowned; but the Jewish state, population 7.7 million, is no less impressive in other areas too: High technology: "Over the past two decades Israel has been transformed from a semisocialist backwater into a high-tech superpower. Adjust for population and Israel leads the world in the number of high-tech start-ups and the size of the venture-capital industry." ("Beyond the start-up nation," The Economist, December 29. 2010) Classical music: "Israel has become a pocket superpower in the arts, most visibly in classical music. … The distinctly Israeli take on the European classical tradition has become the country's most notable cultural export." (David P. Goldman, "Pioneers: A mix of passion and tradition makes Israel a classical-musical superpower," Tablet, July 21, 2010)
Population: Israel's total population today is between that of Istanbul and Tehran but that may change: "At constant fertility, Israel will have more young people by the end of this century than either Turkey or Iran. … Israel will be able to field the largest land army in the Middle East." (David P. Goldman, "Israel as Middle Eastern hegemon," Asia Times, May 24, 2011) Energy: "One of [Israel's] largest deposits – 250 billion barrels of oil in Israel's Shfela basin[ - is] comparable to Saudi Arabia's entire reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil." In addition to the sheer size of the deposits, Israeli engineers are pioneering technological innovations for its extraction. (Lawrence Solomon, "Israel's new energy," Financial Post, Jun 10, 2011) Creativity: "Israel, per capita, is the most creative and innovative country on the face of the earth." (George Gilder, author of The Israel Test, interviewed in "Choosing the Chosen People," National Review, July 30, 2009) Comment: For all Israel's challenge in being accepted by the Palestinians, the neighborhood, Muslims, leftists, antisemites, conspiracy theorists, and assorted cranks, it has a dazzling record of success. (June 13, 2011) Related Topics: Israel This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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