Election predictions II

My friend Erkan put on his blog an interesting poll.
Still, I am convinced that people will change their minds at the last moment and a lot of protest votes will come out: votes for anti-establishment parties.
And still I think that the CHP will do worse than the opinion polls show.

In the last weeks I spoke with many people who normally would vote for the CHP. Now they are looking at other parties. Some say: GP, some choose to vote for an independent candidate, some admit that - unlike AK party roots from political Islam - they will vote for them. Of the 15 people who used to vote for CHP, only one will vote for them again. And one of the other 14 will vote for MHP.

I am still pondering my head while the 'Turkish Diaspora' (6 million people) are only able to vote when they come over to Turkey as Yasemin stated in her post. Are the Turkish diplomats able to vote abroad?

There was a small poll in the Netherlands among the 500.000 Turkish people living there. Most of them support the AK party and only some would vote for independent candidates of the DTP if they were able to vote in the Netherlands. MHP was the third party. It was strange to see that there is almost no support for the CHP in Hollanda...

First Dutch sweet shop opened in Istanbul

This month a shop opened in Bagdat Caddesi: a Dutch sweet shop. I don't think that many people know that the Dutch are famous for their cookies, candies, chocolates, cakes and licorice (see picture above). In fact, I got all kinds of funny jokes about the Dutch cuisine, but may I remind my Turkish, Italian and Greek friends that after the USA and France, the Netherlands is the third largest producer of food in the world..)) With only 600.000 people working in agriculture...

Here are some chocolate samples of Droste.


Although not sweets, below a picture of some of the hundreds of different cheeses the Netherlands produces. Dutch cheese, together with Indo-Dutch food and Mustard sauce, I miss the most since I left the Netherlands 8 years ago. Beer? In Czech republic you have pretty good beer, the USA is Heineken and Amstel minded, and Turkey has its Efes Extra, which beats even Belgian beer..)

Election time

Comparing the Dutch elections with the Turkish one is comparing like the Kentucky Derby, the 2 most exciting minutes in sports, with a turtle race.
Dutch elections are dull, and it's all about 'intellectual stuff', whilst the Turkish elections are overheated once in a while, but for sure full of surprises. And I have to admit: 'I love it'...
For a turtle race you can go to Costa Rica, where they organize such a race from there to the Galapagos Islands. Or to a restaurant in Key West, Florida. That is a nice place to stay for a week or so.

Turkey attacks Kurdish positions in N. Iraq

As I have witnessed over and over again, in general, Turkish media are slow.
When T. Erdogan made the statement that he will not return as the leader of Ak Party if he fails to establish a single party government, it was all over the news in Europe.
It took 36 hours for Turkish journalists to announce that what he said was true.

Yesterday a bomb attack in front of an AK office, and more interestingly:

'Turkish Army' bombed several cities in 'Northern Iraq'. I asked my Turkish wife to check all the news channels, but since there is censorship, they can not broadcast it. Only if there is some kind of 'victory'.
Read your newspapers on Friday, then you will read more...))