Talking Turkey

There is a lot of talk about the "shocking" victory of Recep Erdogan's Justice and Development Party in Turkey's elections.

Some are touting this as proof that democracy can occur amongst a predominantly Islamic population.

Some are arguing that Turkey is beginning a slide towards theocracy.

Neither is accurate.

There are Islamic countries that have maintained democracys, just not Arab ones, and Turkey is not Arab.

As to the victory of Erdogan, it has very little to do with Islam, or Islamism, and much more to the very basic fact that, absent some sort of major crisis, people vote for government that works.

The secular parties in Turkey have been, at least by western standards, extraordinarily incompetent and corrupt.

Edrogan ran promising competence and relatively clean government, and he has largely delivered.

Whatever concerns that the electorate has, this outweighs the concerns of the population about a possible move toward Sharia law in the long term.

I would note that the same phenomenon is why Hugo Chavez wins elections, despite being far more alarming in some significant ways than Erdogan.

If people want to turn Chavez out of government, what they really need to do is to show that their interest is governance, not divvying up spoils.