[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Turkey and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Turkey Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week`s roundup to turkey@jadaliyya.com by Sunday night of every week.]

English

24 June Election Results

Turkey’s new parliament to hold first session on July 8 The composition of the new parliament will be: AKP, 295 seats; CHP, 146 seats; HDP, 67 seats; MHP, 49 seats and the İYİ Party, 43 seats.

HDP passes electoral threshold, keeps seats in parliament Despite having their presidential candidate and several members of parliament in jail, and Erdoğan's call for local organizations to prevent them from passing the electoral threshold, the HDP has gained over sixty seats in parliament.

CHP in hot water amid debate over Kılıçdaroğlu’s leadership After the CHP received only twenty-two percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections, critics have called for Kılıçdaroğlu’s resignation, even carrying out sit-in protests outside the CHP headquarters. Although some are eying İnce as a potential replacement, the party has refuted claims that there are any internal divisions.

Turkish opposition fails miserably in critical election test A much-hyped vote counting platform that failed on election night, conceding defeat via Whataspp, and the IYI Party attracting votes away from the CHP rather than the MHP are some examples of where Turkey's main opposition went wrong.

497 Men – 103 Women MPs in Parliament "The rate of women MPs has increased to 17 percent at 27th Term from 14.7 percent at 26th Term. HDP is the party with the highest rate of women MPs, followed by the AKP. The IYI Party has the lowest rate (7%) of female MPs."

MHP Leader Publishes Names of Opposition Figures In his "thank you" message to his supporters, Devlet Bahçeli included a list of the names of several academics, journalists, and pollsters that he claimed had “defamed, accused wrongly” the MHP.

Election results tallied by leading opposition misled presidential candidate, supporters The CHP's Fair Election Platform's errors and delays in tallying votes caused opposition voters and politicians alike to be misled into thinking the election would go to a second round well into the night, which added to the disappointment when Erdoğan's win was confirmed.

Domestic Politics

Turkey starts importing potato from war-torn Syria Turkey's economy minister has announced that limited amounts of potatoes (one percent of demand) will be imported from northern Syria to combat the recent spike in prices.

Moving staircases to be installed on Istanbul slopes Escalators are set to replace stairs on three of Istanbul's slopes, including the rainbow stairs in Beyoğlu that serve as a reminder of the Gezi protests.

Turkish court orders release of jailed journalist Mehmet Altan Mehmet Altan has been released after almost two years in prison. He had previously been sentenced to life in prison.

Reporting human rights violations in Turkey A policy paper by Kemal Göktaş that surveys 133 Turkish journalists on how they deal with covering Turkish politics and human rights issues, and performs content analysis on four major Turkish newspapers.

International Politics

Greek coast guard shoots Turkish human smuggler on sea: Reports "A Turkish captain was detained on June 23 after he was shot by Greek coastguards in the southern Aegean Sea while transporting seven Syrian migrants with a speedboat."

Ankara vows to ignore Iran sanctions Ankara has said it will not comply with the US government's demand that all countries stop importing oil from Iran, with Turkey's economy minister saying "We recognize no other [country’s] interests other than our own".

How US-Turkey deal in Manbij could affect Russia's influence Competing military activities between the Russia-Iran-Turkey bloc in Idlib and the US-Turkey efforts around Manbij signal a new struggle for influence in northern Syria.

Turkey, Iraq trade blame as concern rises over low water Despite the Iraqi government's claims that the newly completed Ilisu Dam is responsible for Iraq's water shortages, the main culprit is likely Iraq's lack of investment and coordination in its own water management.

Turkey customs union modernisation off table – EU Citing a concern that Turkey is moving further away from the European Union and backsliding on concepts such as rule of law, the European Council has stated that Turkey's accession negotiations have come to a standstill, and thus, there will be no further work on the Customs Union.

Culture and History

Han Solo and Turkish Star Wars Ali Abaday writes about the 1982 movie Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man Who Saved the World), a Turkish version of Starwars that became a cult classic, in part owing to the directors creative (and absurd) means of getting around the prohibitive budget of sci-fi filmmaking.

Sex Changes in Turkey Kaya Genç writes that Ottoman attitudes towards homosexuality and transgender people were much more fluid than those of modern-day Turkey, arguing that Turkish republicans introduced a more repressive attitude towards sexuality, as they saw Ottoman practices as debauched and non-European.

Istanbul exhibit casts light on Ottoman photography The photo albums sent by Sultan Abdulhamid to Otto von Bismarck (on display at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations) were not only a documentation of the Mamara region and Central Anatolia during the late Ottoman period, but also an attempt by the Sultan to attract German investment in Turkey.

Turkish

Election Day Events

24 Haziran 2018 Cumhurbaşkanlığı ve Milletvekilliği Seçim Günü Yaşanan İhlaller The Human Rights Association has compiled a list of reported violations during election day, including people using fake "all access" badges in the Southeast, violence against election observers and women not being allowed to use their vote in Urfa, and attempts at double voting across Turkey.

Oy kullanmak için 10 kilometre yürümek zorunda kaldılar In Hakkari, villagers walked ten kilometers in order to vote after the ballot boxes were moved.

Dünkü kan davası çatışmasının ardından bu sabah şok saldırı In Erzurum, a fight that broke out at the voting booths due to a blood feud between two families left two people dead, including the IYI Party's district head Mehmet Sıddık Durmaz, and three people injured. Durmaz's brother was killed the following day en route to Erzurum to attend the funeral.

Sandık başında 'organize' suç çağrısı: Cezayı ben öderim, rahat olun Organized crime leader Sedat Pekar encouraged people to post pictures of their votes on social media, despite the fact that doing so is a crime, saying that he would pay their fines if caught.

Election Results

Efendi gibi sevinmeyi öğrenmek! Gülse Bisel writes that while there are many appropriate ways to celebrate your candidate's win, firing guns into the air is not one of them. She wonders where and how so many people got ahold of so many guns, and why law enforcement did nothing to stop them.

Böylesi bir iletişimi hak edecek ne yaptık? Azime Acar expresses the hurt and confusion that many felt during İnce's first press conference after an eleven hour silence following Erdoğan's win, wondering what his constituents did to deserve such communication. She argues that rather than calling those who believed there was a conspiracy against him the night of the elections "schizophrenics", İnce should have expressed appreciation for his constituents worrying about him, and expresses surprise that after a campaign of refusing to read on teleprompters, İnce's press conference was almost entirely read off a script.

İstanbul’da İnce patlaması: Kasımpaşa sürprizi Muharram İnce took a large share of the vote in Istanbul, even in AKP strongholds such as Kasımpaşa and Üsküdar.

İşte seçim sonuçlarını doğru tahmin eden anket şirketleri A chart showing which polling companies were the closest in guessing the election results: ORC Research and KONDA were the closest for the presidential elections, putting Erdoğan at fifty-two percent and fifty-one percent respectively. For the parliamentary elections, most polls failed to hit the mark, however, Konsensus guessed the closest.

KONDA genel müdürü: Türklerden HDP’ye gelen oy yarım puan bile değil The general manager of the polling company KONDA has said that, despite claims that the call for CHP voters in the West carried the vote for the HDP, the number of Turks who voted for the HDP solely in order for the party to pass the electoral threshold did not even make up half a point of the party's vote.

Twitter soruyor: İnce, Akşener ve Kılıçdaroğlu nerede? After the election results were announced, the unusual silence coming from İnce, Akşener and Kılıçdaroğlu caused a stir on social media, with some wondering if the opposition leaders had been threatened or worse.

Muharrem İnce: 'Adam kazandı' mesajı atmam hataydı During his press conference following the elections, Muharram İnce has apologized for admitting his defeat via Whatsapp message to Fox TV's İsmail Küçükkaya, which attracted heavy criticism from those on the opposition who expected more than a Whatsapp message after such a charged campaign. In his statement, İnce said that had not expected the message to be broadcast.

Satılan şeker fabrikalarının sandığa etkisi The controversy behind sale of state-owned sugar factories was reflected at the ballots. The AKP's share of the vote decreased in all fourteen districts in which the sugar factories were sold.

Releases and Acquittals

İş bırakma eylemine katıldıkları için meslekten ihraç edilen KESK üyelerine beraat Twenty-three members of the Public Worker's Union Confederation (KESK) who were charged after going on strike for a day have been acquitted; however, they are still campaigning to have their jobs returned.

HDP İstanbul İl Eş Başkanı Çiçek ve 8 HDP’li tahliye edildi The HDP's Istanbul Provincial Co-Chair Cengiz Çiçek, along with nine other HDP members (Gönül Karaman, Gülsimet Önal, Halit İpekyüz, Kazım Köse, Keziban Bulak, Mehmet Emin Kılıçarslan, Yusuf Kesik and Yüksel Seyitvan) have been released from prison.

Celalettin Can da dahil 9 HDP ve HDK'li için tahliye kararı HDP MP Celalettin Can, along with eight other politicians (Abdulselam Yulcu, Erhan Sarıkaya, Vahit Dalğıç, Filiz Yılmaz, Gonca Yangöz, Mehmet Şamil Altan, Nevzat Yılmaz ve Taylan Talaş) have been released from prison

Vicdani Retçi Sergen Sucu Serbest Bırakıldı Conscientious objector Sergen Sucu has been released from jail. He was arrested for refusing to give a statement for an investigation of "propaganda for an organization"; after giving a statement, he was freed.

Domestic Politics

Anlamayacak bir şey yok; o patatesler bu patatesler değil Prices for potatoes and onions have reached record highs this summer. However, despite officials' claims that "dark hands" are at work causing prices to rise, Sedat Başkavak writes that there is a more logical explanation: traders are buying produce at cheap prices from farmers, and selling them for triple the buying price.

Yoksulluk Sınırı 5 Bin 584 Liraya Yükseldi The Turkish Worker's Union Confederation has released its 2018 data on Turkey's subsistence and poverty lines. According to their data, the subsistence income for a family of four is 1.714,35 TL, whereas the poverty line is 5.584,20 TL. While the prices of beef, chicken, eggs, fish, legumes, and spices have not changed, the price of fruits, vegetables, olives, and nuts have risen.

Kürt hak hareketinin kurucu babalarından: Avukat Nurettin Yılmaz’ın mirası Nurettin Yılmaz, a lawyer and Turkey's first Kurdish presidential candidate who is sometimes compared to Thurgood Marshall, has passed away at the age of eighty.

Culture and History

Renksiz Rüya: 1990'larda Diyarbakır'da büyümek The film Renksiz Rüya (Colorless Dream) explores the life and interactions between a young child, and a guest hiding at his house. Although the film is set in Diyarbakir in the 90s, it manages to focus on the character's inner world as much as the chaotic environment outside. It is now showing in select theatres across Turkey.

Bizarre

Dolu beklentisi iyi geyik yaptı: Benden selam edin 'dolu' beyine A photo gallery of some of the extreme measures Istanbul residents took to protect their cars (and themselves) from an expected hailstorm on Tuesday. Highlights include mattresses, prayer rugs, and curtains layered onto cars; and a cardboard suit of armor.