Ironing Out the Kinks? Putin Addresses the Retirement Age Hike

On Wednesday, August 29th, Russian President Vladimir Putin took to national television in Russia to explain, endorse, and tweak United Russia's proposed pension reform project.

United Russia, Putin's big-tent political party, recently proposed that the retirement age in Russia should be raised. Currently, Russian men retire at 60, Russian women retire at 55. Under the original plan, the retirement age for men would increase at a rate of six months per year, topping out at 65 by 2028. For women, the change would be more gradual: it would top out at 63 by 2034.

This proposal, passed unanimously by the United Russia delegation in the State Duma in its first of three readings, but received considerable criticism from members of the Communist Party and Liberal Democratic Party, a relatively rare development.

While not a particularly disagreeable policy project on the surface, the proposal invited many complaints. Russia's communist history makes it especially unpopular to reform or change the country's social safety net. The relatively low life expectancy for Russian men (66 years as of 2016) aroused complaints that Russian men would not live to see their pension benefits. The timing of the proposal's introduction during the World Cup invited critics to accuse the Kremlin of skewed priorities by dumping billions of roubles into an unnecessary soccer tournament but becoming stingy with elderly and potentially vulnerable citizens. And the gradual nature of the program made skeptics wonder how much economic benefit this new program would actually return, as the Kremlin claimed this would be a benefit.

President Putin decided to address the Russian people on this proposal via national television, despite his spokesman previously claiming that the President wasn't involved in the policy proposal.

Putin spoke forcefully, but amicably. In his address, he referred to his audience as "my dear friends" and concluded his remarks with a humble "I ask for your understanding". In regards to the issues, Putin claimed that the retirement age would not be raised to 63 for women, only 60, and that more people would be eligible for earlier benefits and early retirement. Despite his tone, Putin still endorsed the program in general, touting it as a necessary step to economic recovery.

It's too early to gauge whether this speech will stop Putin's high-but-not-invincible approval rating from slipping. The original and wildly unpopular proposal brought the President's approval rating from the low 80s to the mid 60s in only a few months. A report from Meduza, which is generally critical of the Kremlin, claimed that Putin's approval rating had risen back to 70%, but admitted that "Pollsters from the Levada Center told the newspaper Kommersant that the president’s August 29 national address about pension reform had a minimal effect on their survey results, given that only a small number of respondents were contacted after the speech." In fact, that Meduza report only came out one day after the address, and when we consider that there is usually a margin of error to these polling reports, the change is most likely minimal.

This speech may not be all that helpful to the President's approval rating, however. In fact, it could even backfire.  As mentioned before, Putin's spokesman claimed that the President was not involved in the proposal, and now he has thrown his arms around it, for better or worse. The proposed change from 63 to 60 for Russian women is indeed a concession, but women live longer than men in Russia, by nearly 10 years. Russian men are still set to retire at 65 and therefore the fear they may not live to see their benefits still exists. The optics of getting stingy with pension benefits while using a mammoth amount of taxpayer money to fund a soccer tournament still exist. Furthermore, Putin's changing the new retirement age for women to 60 from 63 and claiming wider eligibility for benefits may actually make the plan even more expensive, possibly cancelling out any projected jump-start for the economy. Critics claimed that the gradual nature of the retirement age hike would make any benefits minimal, and now they may be even smaller or nonexistent.

This pension reform project is not law yet in Russia, though it has the support of the United Russia super-majority in the Duma and Putin's endorsement. While Putin still enjoys considerably popularity, the only way he might be able to recapture his previously sky-high approval rating is by scrapping the program, but this would force him to backtrack from a proposal they seem adamant to push into law and find other ways to try to jumpstart the shaky, sluggish economy. In other words, this is probably unlikely. If they push it through, the Russian people will be frustrated by a very unpopular new policy and may not even realize its heralded benefits. Unless a rapid change in public opinion occurs, the Kremlin has put itself into a rut with few good options out.

Putin's Pensioner Problem: United Russia and the Retirement Age

Russian President Vladimir Putin's normally rock-solid approval rating has experienced a sudden drop in recent months.

While it is still high enough to be envied by many political leaders in Western Europe and North America, it is noticeably lower than it used to be. In April 2018, Putin's approval rating stood in a familiar position - 82%. He had just won his fifth Presidential election with 77% of the vote, leaving the second-place candidate, Communist Party member Pavel Grudinin in the dust with 11.77%, and the spectacle of the World Cup was fast approaching. The world was coming to Russia to enjoy one of the world's biggest sporting events outside the Olympics, which had come four years previously.

The World Cup was, by most measurements, a massive success for the Kremlin. There were no incidents of fan violence. Fans from abroad who visited Russia raved about their time spent in the country. The soccer was exciting and featured unexpected results and riveting play. Most of all, the home team considerably over-performed expectations by convincingly winning their group and upsetting a massively favored Spanish squad in the Round of 16. Even in the game where Russia was eliminated against Croatia, the Russian team showed tenacity and fight, holding the Croatians at bay to send the game to extra time and scoring a last-minute goal to tie the game at 2 and send the game to penalty kicks. As a fan, it was sad to see the run end but it's hard to deny the pride felt by the team's run.

In July 2018, Levada Center published a new poll, showing Putin's approval rating down to 67%, a drop of  15% in 3 months. The Russian Public Opinion Research Center put it even lower, at 63%.

The main reason for this drop is simple. Putin and his United Russia party want to raise the retirement age. In Russia, men retire at 60 and women at 55. Under United Russia's plan, the retirement age for men would rise to 65 by 2028, whereas for women it would rise from 55 to 63 by 2034.  The proposal was passed in hopes that it would jump-start the sluggish Russian economy. While no longer in the considerable recession it was in between 2014 and 2017, the Russian economy's recovery has been extremely modest and shaky. The rouble is losing value again, now sitting around 67 per US Dollar after stabilizing around 58 earlier this year because of the spat between the United States and Turkey over the slumping Lira.

At first glance, this retirement age hike doesn't seem like a particularly radical or earth-shattering proposal. A substantial amount of countries have their retirement age around the 65/63 range, and moving the age up 5 and 8 years respectively over periods of ten and sixteen years is considerably gradual. Therefore, from the outside looking in, it may seem a bit unusual that this of all things is receiving relatively fierce opposition. But the proposal is still very unpopular for a few different reasons.

The retirement age as it stands now (60 for men, 55 for women) has been in place since the early 1950s and was signed into law by none other than Iosif Stalin. The fact that the retirement age has not changed in over sixty years, even through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reformation of Russia under Putin means that this new idea represents a break from a perceived social contract between the Russian people and the Russian government. The Moscow Times reported that Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party, lamented when the bill was introduced that "While we were marveling at the goals scored during the World Cup, the Medvedev government decided to score a goal against every one of us...your children and grandchildren won't forgive you for this." Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist and often foul-mouthed LDPR leader, also pledged that his party would vote against the proposal. It is rare to see the Communists and LDPR oppose United Russia in the Duma, but they did in this instance. The Communists have proposed putting the issue to national referendum, which is unlikely to occur. 

There's also the issue of life expectancy in Russia. Russian men are expected to live to around 66, women around 77. This reality has struck fear into Russians, particularly men, that they would not even live to see their pension benefits. While it's true that the life expectancy for Russian men has steadily rebounded from its previous lows in the 1990s and early 2000s, it is still relatively low and mostly due to the high tobacco and alcohol consumption among Russian men especially. Vodka and cigarettes are not as popular as they once were in Russia but they are still consumed in high numbers. 

Another reason for the unpopularity of these reforms is the extraordinarily poor timing of their proposal. The bill to raise the retirement age was introduced during the World Cup, and the perception's unpopularity was amplified considerably by that timing. By proposing these reforms during the World Cup, it is easy for opponents to claim that the government has monstrously skewed its priorities by dumping billions of roubles into a soccer tournament run by the cartoonishly corrupt FIFA but getting stingy with elderly Russians who want to retire. It is also being interpreted as dishonest to propose legislation which is decidedly unpopular during a time when many are distracted by a soccer tournament their country is hosting. 

This is not the first time the Kremlin has tried to reform the social safety net to considerable criticism. In 2005, Putin's government decided to overhaul various benefits for its pensioner population by replacing benefits such as free public transportation and subsidies for telephones, housing and medicine with scheduled cash payments. The new program was poorly rolled out with many never receiving their new cash payments. Those who did receive their payments complained that the cost was insufficient and didn't cover their previous benefits. The program was seen as stingy when the Russian economy was soaring high and had a massive budget surplus. In a rare occurrence, the Kremlin decided to back-track and reinstate the old system. 

United Russia's new proposal has passed its first of three readings through the State Duma, but it is not law yet. The Medvedev government has the opportunity to backtrack and work out the kinks of the bill to make it less unpopular before it becomes law or scrap it altogether if they fear its current implementation will weaken their grip on power. If they insist on pushing it through, however, they may completely lose the surge in popularity they received after the annexation of Crimea. Not only that, the proposed change is gradual and even if the Kremlin is right that it will benefit the economy, effects are probably not going to be particularly noticeable. 

The Communists' hopes for a referendum are unlikely, but if it did happen, it could further cement a policy loss for United Russia if the people convincingly reject the change at the ballot box. If the government tries to manipulate the result to their liking, it could doubly backfire.    

It would be silly to expect a Euromaidan-esque Revolution to come of this policy change (if it happens at all), but Putin has been in power for 18 years and none of his close confidants like Prime Minister Medvedev or Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu or Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov command the same level of trust or confidence as Putin himself among the Russian people. United Russia has largely stayed popular in Russia because of its loose policy commitments and big-tent attitude, instead opting to pursue generally popular ideas as they come up rather than sticking to a ideological commitment. It's worked well for them, which makes this proposal a considerable break from that path. And in a twist of irony, the proposal is not at all radical from the outside looking in.

United Russia is in a bit of a pickle here, and their best option may be to backtrack like in 2005. If they push through the current bill and the economic benefits don't come, the unpopularity will linger. If they double down in an attempt to speed up the claim of economic benefits (for instance, moving retirement ages directly to 65 and 63 on January 1, 2019) they risk an even more unpopular proposal and a fired up opposition. If the referendum happens, a defeat at the ballot box is very much in play, and United Russia hasn't suffered many of those. 

Another Erdoğan Victory: Why?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been elected. Again. 

First sweeping to power in 2002 as Prime Minister, Turkey has been under Erdoğan’s rule for 16 years. He and his Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, have won every general election with at least a plurality since 2002. They have also presided over two nationwide referenda in 2010 and 2017 respectively, in which their desired policy change has come into effect both times.

Under Erdoğan and the AKP, Turkish democracy is alive, but fragile and sickly. Staggering numbers of journalists sit in Turkish prisons. The press, especially television news, is mostly dominated by pro-AKP talking heads. Two of Turkey’s leading newspapers which regularly criticize the government, Hürriyet (Liberty) and Cumhuriyet (The Republic) have been put under extreme pressure by the government. Though not implemented by Erdoğan, the 10% threshold for political parties to get representation in the Turkish Grand National Assembly has proved restrictive, especially for the Kurdish left-wing People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which lacks any sort of support outside the majority Kurdish regions in the southeast part of the country.

President Erdoğan is often compared to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the sense that he still attempts to pursue some facade of democracy but has increasingly pursued an authoritarian rule. Like Putin in Russia, Erdoğan has a loyal following in Turkey, though his is not as large as Putin’s. The two men came to power at similar times, during internal crisis and widespread uncertainty, and both have gained followings for their insistence that their respective administrations represent stability and prosperity.

Western media outlets, however, cautiously predicted that while Erdoğan’s AKP would win the June 24 election, it would do so with only a plurality resulting in a hung parliament, and that while Erdoğan would win the most votes for the Presidential election, he would fall short of 50% and would need to win a runoff against a second-place contender. This was the year Erdoğan’s power would start to wane, it was claimed, and he may even lose the runoff. The economy was sputtering and the Lira was steadily losing value, Erdoğan’s claims of stability were weakening, it was said.

It looked like the opposition had learned some lessons as well. The Kemalist, social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP) had nominated a charismatic man of the people for the presidency in Muharrem İnce over the bureaucratic Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and he was commanding enormous rallies in Izmir, Istanbul, and Ankara. Meral Akşener, the center-right nationalist “she-wolf” of the newly established İYİ (Good) Party was going to cut into Erdoğan’s base and inspire MHP voters angry at Erdoğan to ditch their crimson three-crescent banners for the blue and gold sun flag of the İYİ Party. 

This was not to be. 

While the AKP did not win an outright majority in the Parliament, its partner in the People’s Alliance, the right-wing populist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), saw a mostly-unexpected surge in the polls. Expected to gain only around 4-6% of parliamentary votes, the MHP entered Parliament with a much stronger 11.1%, ensuring the AKP-MHP alliance would retain its majority in parliament. 

İnce won a respectable 30.6% of votes, but couldn’t bring Erdoğan below 50% and the CHP's parliamentary vote declined from 25% in November 2015 to 22.6% in June 2018. 

Meral Akşener, expected to get between 9-15% in the Presidential Election, slumped to 7.3%, and her İYİ Party only scraped 9.9% of votes. Together, Akşener and İnce barely managed to match the performance of the generally unpopular joint CHP/MHP candidate in 2014, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, who lost to Erdoğan 51.7% to 38.4%. 

Selahattin Demirtas, jailed presidential candidate for the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), managed 8.4% of the vote while the HDP crossed the 10% threshold with 11.7% of the vote. 

Why did this happen? Why did the predictions of both the Western media and many of Turkey’s own polling agencies turn out wrong? 

The MHP Strikes Back

Perhaps the most surprising performance of the election was that of the aforementioned far-right Nationalist Movement Party. In 2015, the MHP, while not the loudest voice of opposition, was generally against the ambitions of President Erdoğan. It refused to become part of a possible coalition government with the AKP after the June 2015 election, ensuring a second round of elections in November. Its position in Parliament was weakened in the November 2015 elections. 

Not long after the November 2015 election, the MHP shifted from opposing Erdoğan to supporting him. In 2017, they backed the constitutional referendum that set in motion Turkey's transition from parliamentary democracy to presidential democracy, a referendum many saw as a thinly veiled power-grab by Erdoğan. This was viewed as a very risky move on party leader Devlet Bahçeli's part. Many MHP voters were vocally opposed to this referendum and the party's geographic stronghold in the south of Turkey voted predominantly against it. Bahçeli's shift to support Erdoğan also inspired Meral Akşener, a former member of the MHP, to try to usurp power from him. Akşener lost and left the party, founding the more centrist, civic nationalist İYİ Party in response. 

How the MHP managed to rebound in Sunday's election is still a bit unclear, but its resurgence and continued support for Erdoğan and the AKP turned out to be a successful gamble and the party now holds the parliamentary majority for the People's Alliance. 

İYİ Underwhelms

Meral Akşener's İYİ Party appeared on the scene in October 2017. Akşener, a charismatic and seasoned figure in Turkish politics, quickly attracted substantial attention. Early polling for the Presidential Election had Akşener winning second place and heading to a razor-thin runoff against Erdoğan as well as nearly 20% of the votes in the Parliamentary election. 

The İYİ Party was a party that looked like it would become a force to be reckoned with in its infancy. It was led by a popular new candidate. It railed against the establishment. Its center-right platform seemed to be perfect to combat the right-wing AKP and far-right MHP voters who opposed Erdoğan. 

Its momentum did not last, however, and the main reason for that may be its main ally, the CHP. 

In May 2018, the CHP put forth its presidential candidate, the popular and eloquent ex-physics teacher Muharrem İnce. Akşener's presidential bid had been announced months earlier than İnce's, but İnce quickly surpassed her in the polls. The two candidates were not adversaries in the way they would be with Erdoğan. Akşener welcomed İnce when he announced his running for president and expressed her preference for a wealth of candidates. Both İnce and Akşener pledged to support the other if the presidential election went to runoff. Nevertheless, İnce's campaign may have stopped Akşener's momentum cold. 

Despite that seemingly sudden momentum shift, İYİ is still in its early stages. Akşener isn't president, but she's still the leader of the party and may be able to grow its support in the coming years. The only question is whether she'll end up pulling support away from CHP voters or from the AKP/MHP coalition. 

Anti-Erdoğan Islamism Falls Flat

In Turkey, a political party must win 10% of the vote if it hopes to win seats in the Parliament. This rule was implemented in the 1980s and is often criticized by the opposition as excessive and exclusionary. In order to circumvent this obstacle, both pro- and anti- Erdoğan camps mobilized under the banners of alliances. The pro-Erdoğan People's Alliance consists of the AKP, MHP, and much smaller Great Unity Party, known by its Turkish initials BBP, while the opposition National Alliance is made up of CHP, İYİ, Saadet, and Democrat parties.

If you're familiar with Turkish politics, one of these parties should stick out like a sore thumb, and that's the Saadet (Felicity) Party. While the CHP, İYİ and Democrat parties are all secular Kemalist parties (the CHP is center-left, İYİ and DP are center-right), Saadet is a far-right Islamist political party. 

Why would a far-right Islamist party ally with secular parties, you ask? A shared distaste for President Erdoğan. Saadet is vehemently anti-Erdoğan, but it is far too small of a party to win seats with the 10% threshold, so it joined the National Alliance in hopes of accomplishing both parliamentary representation and the ability to chip away at Erdoğan's Islamist base. Temel Karamollaoğlu, Saadet's presidential candidate, never polled particularly high, but he did at times reach 4-5%. Had Saadet reached that 4-5%, Erdoğan would not have won the election outright and Turkey would have been headed to a runoff election. 

However, Saadet underperformed already-small expectations. Temel Karamollaoğlu only won 0.89% of the vote and the party received a paltry 1.35% of the vote for Parliament, which translates to 0 MPs. 

Turkey's next election will be at the latest, in 2023. Erdoğan is stronger than ever, but his grip on power isn't quite absolute yet. The Turkish economy is starting to sputter and slow down. The lira is losing its value - in 2013, $1 bought you 2 lira, today it buys you 4.7 lira. A major reason for Erdoğan's popularity has been the strength of the Turkish economy under his administration, but the cracks are starting to show, and so far he's been remarkably stubborn in tackling the emerging issues.

Erdoğan will have to play it safe with MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli in order to keep his majority in parliament. One day before the election, the Hurriyet Daily News reported that Bahçeli warned of a possible collapse of the alliance. His criticism was vague, but could result in early elections if it's not heeded.

Once More into the Breach: Turkey goes back to the Polls

For the fifth time in four years, the Republic of Turkey is going to the polls for a pivotal election.

In August 2014, Turkey went to the polls to directly elect their president. In previous years, a parliamentary vote elected the Turkish President, a mostly ceremonial position which was far less powerful than that of the Prime Minister's office. That rule was changed, however, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was popularly elected with 51.7% of the vote, decisively beating out cross-party candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu's 38.4% and Kurdish representative Selahattin Demirtaş' 9.7%.

Two elections were held in 2015. The first, in June, pushed Erdoğan's right-wing Islamist Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, down to 40.87% of the vote, enough for a plurality but short of a majority in the Grand National Assembly. The center-left Kemalist Republican People's Party (CHP) placed second with 25.98% of the vote, while the smaller far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and left-wing Kurdish-interest People's Democratic Party (HDP) picked up 16.29% and 13.12% of the vote.

Coalition negotiations were vigorous but ultimately fruitless, highlighting the polarization between Turkey's four major parties. The AKP refused to govern in a minority government. Negotiations for a unity government between the AKP and CHP broke down. The HDP and MHP both refused to enter into coalition with the AKP. A CHP-MHP minority coalition with "outside support" from the HDP was rejected by the MHP.

A second election was called for November, and the results were a return to the status quo. Despite the predictions pointing towards little change in the result from June and another hung parliament, the AKP rebounded from its weak showing in June as it managed to push some MHP and HDP voters back into its camp while the CHP very, very slightly improved its vote total.

In 2017, Turkey voted on a national referendum that aimed to change the parliamentary democracy system to a presidential system similar to that of the United States, France and Brazil. It was widely considered among President Erdoğan's critics to be a consolidation of power and another move towards authoritarianism in the already-fragile Turkish democracy. The referendum very narrowly passed 51.4% to 48.6% and seemed to unite many of the anti-Erdoğan factions: secular social democrats, far-right nationalists, and Kurds. Despite the MHP's support for the changes proposed in the referendum, many MHP voters spurned their party's official campaign and voted against the referendum.

Turkey's next election was originally scheduled for November 3rd, 2019. On April 18th, however, President Erdoğan, echoing his recently-turned allies in the MHP headed by Devlet Bahçeli, called for an earlier election. Yet Erdoğan took it one step further than Bahçeli and decided to move the elections up from November 2019 to June of 2018, two months earlier than Bahçeli's proposal for August 2018. 

The direct election of the Turkish President in these upcoming elections has brought a new face and a new party into the forefront. Meral Akşener, a former member of Parliament from the MHP, founded the Good (İyi) Party in October 2017. The İyi Party in practice seems to be a more moderate nationalist party, a center-right counterpart to the center-left Republican People's Party, and an alternative for disillusioned MHP members who dislike their party's alliance with the AKP. Indeed, soon after its creation, four MHP MPs and a CHP MP defected from their parties and became members of the Good Party. 

Meral Akşener is a fascinating, seasoned and charismatic figure. She is a practicing Muslim, but does not wear a headscarf and her party praises the secular governmental framework championed by Turkey's venerated founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. According to The Economist, she frequently is heard "peppering her speeches with wisecracks and jokes." In direct presidential polls, she trails Erdoğan, but not by much. Her campaign is also somewhat of a crusade against the bloated, corrupt and ineffective establishment in Turkey which has frustrated many who are sick of Erdoğan, in power since 2002. While Akşener's political career is not young, she has experienced a political revival with her vigorous campaigning against the constitutional referendum in 2017 and her break from the MHP. 

Now that the President of Turkey is a position set to take on more power than it had before, the campaign has become one of considerable interest. Erdoğan has not formally declared his candidacy, but likely will do so soon under the People's Alliance, a coalition between the AKP and MHP. In a way, this may be a admittance of weakness as the MHP's alliance with AKP and the rise of Meral Akşener has split MHP voters. Parliamentary representation for political parties in Turkey relies on surpassing a threshold of 10%, which the MHP would have trouble attaining without allying with Erdoğan. Members of Parliament are also not going to be able to run for both a seat in the Grand National Assembly and the Presidency.

Meral Akşener herself looked like she may have had to run as an independent due to a technicality regarding the Iyi Party's being too young to stand in the Parliamentary election, but in a show of solidarity, fifteen MPs from the CHP changed over to the Iyi Party, securing her ability to run as a member of her new party and her party's ability to elect representatives. The center-left CHP has two candidates who have declared interest so far: Didem Engin and Öztürk Yılmaz. The party's leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, previously said he would not run for president, but that may change as the campaign jump-starts over the next month. Polls indicate that Erdoğan will likely win the first round, but unlike in 2014, he will probably have to head to a second-round runoff, most likely against Akşener.

Akşener has one difficult problem standing in her way, however: the Kurds. As a former member of the MHP, Turkey's Kurdish population is unlikely to rally to her cause, and some of the more conservative Muslim Kurds may support Erdoğan over her. Aksener was a supporter of the Turkish military operation in Afrin in northern Syria, a Kurdish enclave which offered little resistance. While Aksener is critical of Erdoğan, she is still nationalistic and may continue Turkey's involvement in Syria against the enclave that the Kurds in Syria have carved out for themselves. While the Syrian Democratic Forces are not exactly the same as the terrorist organization known as the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the two organizations do share an ideology and former PKK fighters likely work in the SDF's armed ranks. The main difference is that the SDF is a militant group that has mostly fought against Islamic State, whereas the PKK has been fighting a sort of guerrilla war against Ankara. Whatever your views on the conflict between Turkey and the PKK are, it is understandable why the Turkish government does not support this group.

While Akşener has campaigned in the southeastern part of Turkey, her being able to rally the Kurds to her cause is unlikely, and she may have to look elsewhere to secure victory in the Presidential election. The Iyi Party is a center-right party in practice, the AKP is right-wing, and the MHP is far-right. As stated previously, while Akşener believes in the principle of secular government, she is a practicing Muslim and sometimes described as devout. This may enable her to win over moderate AKP voters in Turkey's urban centers, people who are Muslim and who have conservative values but may not necessarily want religion in the government. In the national referendum last year regarding the transformation from parliamentary to presidential democracy, densely populated areas surrounding Istanbul and Ankara voted down Erdoğan's "Yes" campaign...but just barely. The AKP is still influential and powerful in these cities, though it is not dominant the way it is in the heartlands such as Konya. If the Iyi Party presents itself as an alternative in these areas and pushes the election to a runoff, this is where Aksener could make the pivotal difference, converting just enough votes from AKP to Iyi may push her ever so slightly over the top. 

The latest polls have Erdoğan in a convincing lead for the first round of the Presidential Election, but not enough to avoid a runoff. Akşener looks like the primary challenger who will be going up against him in the second round. She trails him narrowly in the second round, 52.2%-47.8%. As the campaign develops and the elections draw closer, it will become more evident as to whether Akşener can tap into moderate AKP voters having doubts about Erdoğan. She seems to be pulling most of her votes from CHP and MHP voters at the moment, but her charisma, popularity and populist sentiment may be just enough for her to produce a monumental upset.   

As of May 7th, 2018, Turkey's election showdown has become more defined.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will appear as a member not of the AKP, but of the Cumhur İttifakı (People's Alliance), a coalition of the AKP and MHP.

His opponents are numerous. On May 4th, the CHP nominated Muharrem İnce as their presidential candidate. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the CHP, stuck to his claims that he would not run for president, Selahattin Demirtaş was nominated from behind bars to be the HDP's candidate, Meral Akşener will carry the banner of the İyi Party, and Temel Karamollaoğlu will run with the Saadet (Felicity) Party, an Islamist anti-Erdoğan party. A handful of minor party and independent candidates will also run. Doğu Perinçek has expressed his interest in running with the left-wing nationalist Patriotic Party, Vecdet Öz with the center-right Justice Party, ex-MHP member Sinan Oğan, ex-AKP member and economist Tuna Bekleviç.

Despite the wealth of candidates running in the Presidential Election, only about three of these stand a chance at winning the Presidency: Erdoğan, İnce, and Akşener. 

İnce and Akşener, though rivals in the Presidential Election, have shown an ability to cooperate due to their shared anti-Erdoğan stance. For the parliamentary election, CHP and İyi have teamed up with the far-right Saadet (Felicity) Party and the center-right Democrat Party. Together these four parties (CHP, IYI, DP and SP) make up the Nation Alliance, a direct rival to the AKP-MHP coalition. A poll conducted on the 1st of May puts the People's Alliance at 270 parliamentary seats, the Nation Alliance at 230, and the Kurdish HDP at 100, resulting in a hung parliament. This alliance building would bypass the 10% election threshold, 

While İnce and Akşener seem to understand that they will need each others' support to defeat Erdoğan, their parties do differ on one important issue: the Kurds and the HDP. During coalition negotiations, the CHP expressed interest in bringing the HDP into the anti-Erdoğan coalition, but Akşener and the İyi Party did not support this. İnce has expressed interest in visiting Selahattin Demirtaş in prison as well as claiming that “The HDP are also children of this nation". 

Erdoğan is almost guaranteed to win the first round of the Presidential Election as he heads the most politically united group in Turkey, but he is unlikely to win with over 50% of the vote, which will force him to a runoff. He will almost certainly face either İnce or Akşener in that runoff. İnce and Akşener both narrowly trail Erdoğan in runoff polling, and it looks like they will attempt to use different strategies in their hopes of unseating the current President. It seems as though İnce will try to rally the Kurds to his ticket in a second round by appealing to their frustration with Demirtaş still in prison, whereas Akşener will try to chip away at Erdoğan's base by appealing to her faith and her center-right political platform. 

Both strategies are ambitious in Turkey's polarized political climate. No first-round presidential polls have been conducted since İnce was chosen as the CHP's candidate, so it remains unclear as to whether he or Akşener will command more support in the first round of voting. The most recent poll had Akşener edging out second place with 24% of the vote whereas a generic CHP candidate would receive about 20%, but İnce is a popular and charismatic candidate just like Akşener.

Natalie Portman and the Plight of Polarization

Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman, famous for her roles in the Star Wars prequels and Black Swan, is under fire for her refusal to attend a ceremony in Israel to receive the Genesis Prize, an American award which recognizes Jewish people for their substantial contributions to their respective fields.

The ceremony was quickly cancelled after her announcement.

Portman claims her reason for not attending is because of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to attend. Portman, who has kept her Israeli roots close, has been critical of Netanyahu and was "...very, very upset and disappointed” when he won re-election in 2015. She has also said she "find[s] his racist comments horrific,”

Portman was quick to clarify, however, that her refusal to attend the event was not meant to appear as a general boycott of Israel, merely the Israeli Prime Minister and his political platform.

Unfortunately, her personal protest was immediately twisted by both sides to fit their own respective narratives. Israel's Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz claimed her decision bordered on anti-Semitism, and according to Ha'aretz, "On Friday, Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev said: “I was sorry to hear that Natalie Portman has fallen like ripe fruit into the hands of supporters of BDS.""  Knesset member Oren Hazan, also from Likud and currently serving a suspension, suggested the actress should have her Israeli citizenship revoked.

On the other hand, members of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) were overjoyed at Portman's protest. An article in Forward proudly proclaims "Actually, Natalie, you ARE practicing BDS". The article claims that "I understand your hesitation to “boycott the entire nation. But this is not what BDS is. Individuals are not the target of boycott efforts — the state is. These things can and should be separated."

Both claims are unfair to Mrs. Portman.

Accusing an actress who has strong ties to Israel and who has expressed her admiration for Israeli culture and her Jewish faith on multiple occasions of "bordering on anti-Semitism" is ridiculous and facetious. Not only is it inaccurate to accuse Portman of anti-Semitism, it furthers the stereotype that Israelis become overly defensive at criticism directed at their country and revert to accusing their critics of anti-Semitism even if they harbor no ill sentiment towards Israelis or Jews in general. Anti-Semitism is unfortunately still alive and well and even growing in some areas with the rise of the nationalist, populist right. Natalie Portman is not part of that nasty rising tide.

These sentiments reflect a sour turn towards right-wing populism in Israel. When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to protest police brutality and lingering institutional racism by kneeling during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner before football games, he was personally vilified and insulted by U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters as being disrespectful and unpatriotic. However, nonviolent protest is part of the right to constitutional freedom of speech and assembly that Americans are explicitly given in the First Amendment. While one does not have to agree with Kaepernick’s protest or motives, it is unfair to jump to the conclusion that he is unpatriotic; many would argue his dissent was a patriotic demonstration as it showed a desire for the US to fix lingering problems in its justice system. Kaepernick and Portman are both engaging in civil disobedience, a form of non-violent protest, a right which is integral in any free society. It is extremely important that those claiming to be democratic remember that their elected representatives are not above criticism, scrutiny or protest.

On the other hand, it’s condescending, opportunistic and flippant to commandeer Portman’s protest of Netanyahu, a Prime Minister whose party only received 23.4% of the votes in the last General Election, into an implicit or unintended support for the BDS movement. It is especially insolent when she publicly and explicitly claims her personal views do not equate to support for the movement.
The author of the aforementioned article which claims Portman is actually practicing BDS, claims that BDS is not about boycotting the “entire nation”, but the “state”. True, “nation” and “state”, while often used interchangeably, do not have the same meaning. “Nation” generally refers to the people of a country, “state” to the government of that country. These terms, however, are most certainly intertwined. When a country is predominantly ethnically and/or religiously homogenous, and Israel could be considered as such when it calls itself as a Jewish, democratic state, it is referred to as a “nation-state”.  Israel is about 75% Jewish, 21% Arab (mostly Muslim, some Christian) and 4% other (Druze, for instance).

The problem with this distinction is that it is murky at best. BDS often claims its roots in the South African anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. South Africa’s venomously racist apartheid government, in place from 1948 until it was significantly weakened in 1990 and fully dismantled by 1994, was put under serious international sanctions in the 1980s. The economy was put under considerable strain and many claim that the economic hardship was an instrumental part of the South African government’s repeal of the apartheid laws under President F.W. De Klerk.

Sanctions, while a peaceful method of protest used by many different governments, have often been criticized as disproportionately affecting ordinary people while those in power feel little if any pressure. This was an oft-repeated line when Fmr. President Obama desired to strike a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran and a thaw with Cuba. Supporters of these foreign policy objectives claimed that ordinary Iranians and Cubans, whether supporters of their respective governments or not, were the ones to hurt most from sanctions. If a general boycott of the Israeli government was enforced, there is a possibility that it would have the same effect: economic strain on the working man who has little direct involvement with the government’s policies, little if any pressure on those in power. How exactly does BDS plan to boycott Israel and not have that affect the ordinary Israeli?

BDS, like most political protest organizations, has a method and a message. Its method, in theory, borrows from long-utilized methods of nonviolent protest. Boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning are all legitimate forms of peaceful protest. In theory, these are seemingly sound methods of getting a message out even if the message may come across as disagreeable.

In practice, however, BDS often engages in posturing which can alienate people who may be willing to criticize specific policies enacted by the Israeli government, but who are not supportive of a wholesale boycott. The smash hit superheroine movie Wonder Woman was met with ire and calls for boycott from BDS as the protagonist is played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot. When faced with criticism, some supporters claimed their desire for a boycott was due to the fact that Mrs. Gadot was a soldier in the Israeli Defence Forces, where she served two years of mandatory conscription and had voiced support for on social media. But considering Gadot's service in the IDF was mandatory, she did not see combat, and she does not enact policy, many saw the boycott as prejudiced rather than specifically critical of a Israeli government policy platform. Is a former conscript wrong to express patriotic feelings for the army and country she served?

Portman is well within her rights to criticize and express her disagreements with Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is unfortunate that her plain, direct explanation of her decision has been co-opted by those on both sides of this hopelessly complicated, tangled conflict. 

Lessons to Learn from Kemerovo

You probably haven't heard of Kemerovo. It's understandable if you haven't, it isn't exactly Paris or London.

Keremovo is a city in Russia located 255 km (158 mi) from Novosibirsk, the biggest city in Siberia and Russia's third largest behind Moscow and St. Petersburg. Slightly over 500,000 live in the industrial city of Kemerovo.

On March 25, 2018, a fire ripped through the "Winter Cherry" mall and theatre complex in the city. According to the BBC, the fire started somewhere on an upper floor in the mall, during school holidays. The complex, which had multiple movie theatres, a bar, cafe, and a bowling alley, was packed and bustling.

While the cause of the fire isn't known yet for sure, two speculative answers are floating around.

"Senior regional official Vladimir Chernov was quoted as saying the fire probably began in the children's trampoline room on the top floor of the four-storey building.

"The preliminary suspicion is that a child had a cigarette lighter which ignited foam rubber in this trampoline room, and it erupted like gunpowder," he said.\

However, Rossiya 24 TV, a national broadcaster, said an electrical fault was the most likely cause - as in most previous deadly fires in Russia."

President Vladimir Putin visited Kemerovo and blamed "criminal negligence and sloppiness" for the disaster.

The scenes were heartbreaking. A Russian man spoke to a crowd of indignant protesters in the city center on the 27th of March, which had been declared a day of mourning. He detailed the last words he spoke to his daughter before she fell victim to the blaze. His last words to the crowd were interrupted by his own tears. The protesters called for an investigation into the disaster and for local officials to resign.

Rumors are swirling around. Official numbers claim 64 people died and that 27 are still missing, but some are adamant that the death toll is much higher, perhaps as high as 300. Despite the history of deceit and propaganda which has come from authorities and the state media in Russia, this has not yet been confirmed. In fact, Meduza, a Russian and English paper based in Riga which is generally quite critical of the Kremlin and President Putin, lays out a comprehensive list of reasons why the rumors of the death toll being much higher than reported may not be true.

In fact, according to The Moscow Times, another fairly liberal publication, a Ukrainian blogger who called is now being investigated for intentionally spreading the rumor of around 300 dead.

"In an online video posted by Volnov on the day of the tragedy, the blogger is heard posing as an emergency services official in a prank phone call to a morgue in Kemerovo.

He asks the bewildered medical worker on the line if there is space for at least 300 dead bodies.

In comments to the RBC business portal, Volnov confirmed that he was the author of the recordings and said that 300 was an estimate based on the number of seats in the shopping mall's cinema complex."

Even if the official figures are not found to be entirely accurate, there is still a problem to be discussed among the Russian people in the wake of this horrific disaster.

The disaster in Kemerovo is a symptom of two much larger and much more grim problems than a simple building fire. First, corruption in Russia is a rampant epidemic. Transparency International ranks Russia 135th out of 180 in its corruption index, on par with countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, and Bangladesh. While corruption is arguably not as bad as it was in Russia under former President Boris Yeltsin, the issue is still a common scapegoat for Russia's internal issues or inefficiencies.

Yet little ever seems to be accomplished regarding corruption. The current government, while occasionally offering words of encouragement to anti-corruption efforts, does not seem particularly interested in resolving the issue on a national scale. "Not as bad as it was under President Yeltsin" is a low expectation to set and an even lower one to declare the status quo.

Corruption has been a problem in the Kremlin long before Vladimir Putin ever considered running for office. It started to rear its ugly head on a nationwide scale under hardliner Premier Leonid Brezhnev in the 1970s. The planned economy, still being heralded as the superior system to the perceived excesses and hedonism of capitalism, had become rife with redundancies, waste and an endless bureaucracy. It had started to stagnate and rot from within. Reformist Premier Mikhail Gorbachov tried to right the ship, but his reforms largely backfired and contributed to mounting instability which eventually became a major reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It only grew and spread under Yeltsin as his ineffective and wildly unpopular government fruitlessly attempted to reform the Russian economy from the smoldering ashes of the collapsed planned economy.

And here we are, in Vladimir Putin's eighteenth year of power. While rushing to blame Putin as if he was the one to personally start the fire is excessive, it may be time to seriously address a different, intangible problem that is related to the stubborn corruption present in Russia: apathy.

Russians and their Eastern European counterparts are often stereotyped as stoic peoples who grimly go about their lives, rarely smiling unless something unexpectedly wonderful happens or they've had a few drinks. Unfortunately, this stereotype can sometimes translate to the political arena. Russians are generally supportive of democracy in theory, but the brain drain, poverty, crime and lost identity that came to define the 1990s soured many Russians' opinions on the new system of government. Political apathy, while found everywhere, is especially recognizable and tangible in today's Russia.

While Russia in the 1990s was more democratic than it is now or was under communism, "more" is a relative, and in this case, marginal term. When people are represented by a government which struggles to complete even basic functions, the power and freedom that democracy is supposed to extend to the people  of a sovereign state are difficult to realize.

This was a problem in the United States before its constitution was written as well. Between the end of the American Revolution in 1783 and the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, the United States was governed by the Articles of Confederation, a sort of proto-type constitution that decentralized government to an extreme degree. While life was freer under the Articles than it was under the British Crown, the new government was so ineffective that it proved difficult to realize and celebrate these freedoms.

Eighteen years after Vladimir Putin swept his way into power, he remains the ever-dominant figure in Russian politics. While the Russian economy surged between 2000 and 2007, it has been sluggish or in serious recession since then. President Putin is starting to be compared to Leonid Brezhnev, as while life is generally stable and steady, corruption and apathy are rampant in a sluggish, stagnant state.

That's where the Russian people can come in and make a difference.

While one can argue that Putin did preside over a substantial rebound for Russia in the 2000s, he needs to be judged on more than his accomplishments (or outside factors which he took credit for) in his first seven years of power.

The Kemerovo Disaster was a horrific disaster which could have been prevented. It's easy to lay the blame at those directly involved, and they are right to be reprimanded. There is no excuse for the alleged negligence of those in the direct vicinity: the security who failed to pull or fix the fire alarm, those who decided to lock the theater doors, and the bogus inspection of the building's procedures and preparedness for an emergency.

These livid protesters are calling for accountability, a basic tenet of representative government. For years the Kremlin has failed to deliver that. It's not healthy to fall back into the complacency that life is stable and quiet-society requires an active and invested populace. Another reason for Kemerovo's disaster was the under-funded fire department: Russia's wealth unfortunately is mostly focused in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Proposed investments in the smaller cities are slow to come if ever.

Russia does not necessarily need photogenic pictures of millions in the streets demanding reform or even revolution as was seen in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014. What it needs, at least as a first step, is for its people to demand accountability on a grand scale. It's time to stop brushing off corruption as a fact of life-reform is difficult but it certainly is not impossible. Kemerovo was not the first fire disaster in contemporary Russia, but if the people are willing to demand accountability, disasters like this can be prevented or at least substantially controlled so there is less to grieve.