Turkey had local elections last weekend. The Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdagon, billed the elections as a referendum on his rule of the country, which has been marred by allegations of fraud and corruption. There is a general feeling among some citizens that the Prime Minister has become a bit of a dictator and indulged in the sort of behavior that has occurred a lot in-and-around the Middle East lately.
The current position is that he will probably achieve a marginal victory. In Ankara, the result is in the balance and unofficial figures say that the incumbent party won by less than 1%. There were protests because opposition activists claimed that a lot of ballot boxes, which were mainly from the opposition areas, had not been counted. If they had been counted the result would have been different, it is claimed.
What is interesting is that the opposition to the Prime Minister’s Government also accused the government of triggering power cuts to interrupt voting. This is very underhand behavior, if it is true. In response to the accusation, the country’s energy minister blamed the disruption on an errant cat who had wandered into an electricity substation.
“Please don’t think of this as a joke, friends. A cat went into one of the power distribution units and caused a short circuit… I’m telling you that it is wrong to connect this to the election”.
Well, you can see that once again the humble domestic cat is a scapegoat. You may have noticed how convenient our voiceless cat is when an excuse is required for all manner of human problems from allegedly fraudulent elections to rampant diseases and decimated native wildlife including the precious birds.
I also feel that the rich and big business are becoming more powerful and working more often together with governments in the West, certainly in Europe, Russia and America and in India and China as well while the poor are getting poorer and the divide is getting bigger. This seems to be a symptom of the modern world. It is becoming less equal and fair. If I’m correct then the world is becoming less good. Based on your account Turkey can be included in this assessment. One of the reasons is that the world is becoming more competitive and harsh competition tends to result in less moral behaviour. It’s the rat race.