Reprinted from Dispatches From The Edge
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
(Image by (From Wikimedia) Government of Chile, Author: Government of Chile) Details Source DMCA
As Turkey gears up for one of the most important elections in its recent history, the country appears, as one analyst noted, to be coming apart at the "seams"...
*Longstanding tensions with the country's Kurdish population have broken out into open war.*A Kurdish-led left political party is under siege by rightwing nationalists and the terrorist organization, the Islamic Front.
*Independent journalists have been attacked by mobs led by leading members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
*Erdogan, his family, and leading figures in the AKP have been entangled in several major corruption schemes.
*The economy has stalled, inflation is on the rise, unemployment is at a five year high, tourism is tanking, and the Turkish lira is plunging, driving up the national debt.
All Turkey lacks these days is a rain of frogs and rivers of blood, but there is still time before the Nov. 1 election.
Some of these plagues are long standing, but most are the direct result of Erdogan's determination to reverse the outcome of last June's election that saw the AKP lose control of the parliament, and the President's grand plan for an all-powerful executive -- run by him -- died aborning.
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