Via the BBC: Votes counted after Turkish poll

Votes are being counted in Turkey after a general election being seen as a crucial test of its secular tradition.

[…]

Some 42 million people were eligible to vote in the poll, while 14 parties are vying for seats in the 550-member parliament.

Voting, which was compulsory, started at 0700 (0400 GMT) in eastern Turkey, and polls opened an hour later in the rest of the country.

All election banners, slogans and party flags were taken down on Saturday night, in accordance with Turkey’s electoral law.

Polling stations closed at 1700 local time (1400 GMT).

And now we wait for the results and the reactions.

What will happen if the AKP (which is a religious-based, Islamic party) retains its majority? What if that majority exceeds the 2/3rd needed to elect the President without interference from the other parties (the issue which led to these early elections in the first place)? How will the pro-secularists react? And, perhaps most important of all, how will the military react?

This also could end up being a case study wherein the the electoral rules do a poor job of reflecting the actual will of the voters in the context of a contentious election that results in a crisis. For details on the problems with Turkey’s electoral system, see here.

Via the BBC: Chavez ‘battalions’ hold meetings

Plans to form a single political party in Venezuela have taken a step forward with the first activists’ meetings.

Six million people have signed up to become members of the President’s United Socialist Party.

Critics worry about the threat to plurality, but organisers say it will give ordinary Venezuelans more chance to shape the future of the country.

Venezuela’s parliament, the National Assembly, is made up purely of politicians who support the president.

But they come from a number of different parties.

Hugo Chavez is changing that by creating one united party, which he says will be constructed from the bottom up.

Of course, in regards to that last sentence, that’s what they all say. The Soviet government and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union both had bottom-up organizations on paper, where power was supposed to flow upwards from the people to the pinnacle of the state/party, but in reality all the lower levels did was rubber-stamp whatever the next higher level presented to them, all the way to the top of the Party–which was where the real power was.

Now, I am not asserting that Chávez is creating a Soviet-style regime, but I am saying that I don’t buy the statement that this is simply a way to govern from the “bottom up.” Like all of Chávez’s recent moves, this is about consolidating power around himself (whether it is expanding decree authority or attempts to curtail free expression).

I will say this: the first paragraph asserts that this is a move to create a single party in Venezuela, but the text makes it sound like it is an attempt to unite all the pro-Chávezistas into a single party. While the latter is still a clear power-consolidation move, it is not the exact same thing as the former, as one presumes that opposition parties, anemic as they may be, will be allowed to function. The model here is probably more the PRI in Mexico in its heyday (without, I would wager, regular executive rotation) than the CPSU.

There is also a clear whiff of authoritarianism in the air when people in power start organizing their citizen supporters using military terminology:

Six million people have volunteered to become activists.

They have been formed into battalions. More than 1,000 of these have now met for the first time.

They will choose representatives who will soon take part in a national congress which will decide how the party will work.

[…]

Mr Chavez says the battalions will be centres of debate which will drive the socialist revolution.

I know that many see Chávez as some sort of hope for the poor in Venezuela, but he continues to appear to me to be self-serving and power-seeking, and history shows that those types of leaders don’t end up serving the public good in the end, even if they use public services as a means of accruing and consolidating power.

Foreign Policy has The List.

Most are just silly and rank up their with the utterances of Pat Robertson (for some examples, see here, here, here and here–not a comprehensive list, btw).

The one about Polio, however, is simply tragic.

h/t: Betsy Newmark.

I was doing a little writing this morning and was looking up a factoid about the Colombian former guerrilla group the M-19 that led to a reference to an Ecuadoran guerrilla group that I hadn’t thought about in years, but that is clearly the very best name for a guerrilla group ever.

That name?

¡Alfaro Vive, Carajo! (which translates, Alfaro Lives, Dammit!).

When spoken aloud in Spanish with the appropriate gusto, it has quite the visceral sound that is perfect for a guerrilla organization. In English it is simply freakin’ funny.

For those who care about actual details, the group is no longer active, and many of its members moved into non-violent politics as the result of a national dialog in 1991. Based on the one reference work at my immediate disposal it is unclear if the group continued to use the name in the electoral realm or was absorbed by another, existing, party.

The name is a reference to an Ecuadoran general/President (Eloy Alfaro) who was assassinated in the early Twentieth Century. Why it would be of symbolic importance that he lives, or why his named should be associated with an explicative is unclear based on my limited knowledge of the subject.

Via the BBC: Turkey prepares for key election

Political campaigning has ended in Turkey ahead of Sunday’s general election, seen as one of the most important in the nation’s history.

The early poll was called after MPs from secular parties and the ruling AK Party reached deadlock, after failing to agree on a candidate for president.

The government has been focusing its campaign on its economic record.

The opposition accuses the Islamic-based AK Party of threatening Turkey’s secular system.

Tomorrow will be most interesting and the results will have important implications for Turkish politics.

Some background can be found here, here and here. See also Matthew Shugart’s multiple posts on the issue.

Yesterday the President issued an Executive Order that defines what the CIA cannot do in regards to interrogations of prisoners believed to have information on terrorism (or, I suppose, anything else). Specifically the administration is attempting to address issues raised by the Supreme Court (via the AP):

The executive order is the White House’s first public effort to reach into the CIA’s five-year-old terror detention program, which has been in limbo since a Supreme Court decision last year called its legal foundation into question.

Several thoughts come to mind. First, as WaPo and the NYT, note this morning, the EO allows the program to resume (it has supposedly been on hold) and the guidelines in question are rather broad and vague. Still, as the NYT notes, it would seem that these rules do scale back what the CIA is allowed to do:

Several officials said the permitted techniques did not include some of the most controversial past techniques, among them “waterboarding,” which induces a feeling of drowning, and exposure to extremes of heat and cold.

I must confess as to having a hard time taking this all that seriously. For one, I concur with the following (via the WaPo story):

“All the order really does is to have the president say, ‘Everything in that other document that I’m not showing you is legal — trust me,’ ” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch.

That is standard operating procedure for the administration–they are big on the “trust me” mode of argumentation. And really, I have to say that I agree with Jeralyn Merritt:

This has all the earmarks of an order designed to continue rather than limit CIA abusive interrogation techniques.

However, beyond that, when the President does things like he did yesterday, i.e., basically say that he will not allow the DoJ to prosecute specific laws that he doesn’t like (at least if they challenge his executive prerogatives) or given his usage of signing statements, which basically say he will ignore the parts of the law he doesn’t like, how can we take seriously that the President will necessarily follow his own guidelines?

The Palmetto Scoop has the latest and Rudy leads the GOP pack and Hillary the Democratic.

Interestingly, McCain is second in the Republican field, suggesting he may not be quite dead yet. Romney appears quite toast-like in terms of SC at the moment.

Via WaPo: Broader Privilege Claimed In Firings

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

The position presents serious legal and political obstacles for congressional Democrats, who have begun laying the groundwork for contempt proceedings against current and former White House officials in order to pry loose information about the dismissals.

Under federal law, a statutory contempt citation by the House or Senate must be submitted to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, “whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.”

But administration officials argued yesterday that Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases, such as the prosecutor firings, in which the president has declared that testimony or documents are protected from release by executive privilege.

Sorry, but it is the job of the Justice Department to pursue execution of the laws passed by Congress, not to ignore laws because the President doesn’t like them. Indeed, the underlying logic here is that the Congress can’t investigate the executive branch if the President has decided that he doesn’t want them to do so–so much for checks and balances and oversight (although ultimately the logical conclusion of the administration’s position here is that the only real c&b power that the Congress has is impeachment, as they can do that by themselves).

According to the piece, the Reagan administration once asserted the same position, which involved an EPA official named Burford. The case ended up in court, and Congress eventually got what it wanted:

In the Burford case, which involved spending on the Superfund program, the White House filed a federal lawsuit to block Congress’s contempt action. The conflict subsided when Burford turned over documents to Congress.

As Karen Tumulty notes at Swampland:

The article points out that the Reagan Administration made the same kind of argument in 1984, when EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford was cited for contempt by the House, but before it got to court, Burford turned over documents. In fact, that is how these standoffs over executive privilege have generally turned out in the past–with a deal. Neither side appears interested in one this time.

One wonders. Jacob Sullum at Reason Hit and Run thinks a deal will take place:

I’ll go out on a limb and predict that the current confrontation, like the one with Gorsuch and every other showdown over documents reviewed by the CRS report, will be resolved without any actual prosecutions for contempt. After some more posturing, the administration will give Congress the information it wants while insisting it really doesn’t have to.

I will confess, that while a deal may happen, I am more inclined to think that the administration will stonewall and try and run out the clock rather than have to submit to the Congress.

All of this (the current case and the Burford case) is part of the “unitary executive” theory that this administration holds to rather tightly (back to WaPo):

David B. Rifkin, who worked in the Justice Department and White House counsel’s office under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, praised the position and said it is consistent with the idea of a “unitary executive.” In practical terms, he said, “U.S. attorneys are emanations of a president’s will.” And in constitutional terms, he said, “the president has decided, by virtue of invoking executive privilege, that is the correct policy for the entire executive branch.”

However, I have to agree with the following:

But Stanley Brand, who was the Democratic House counsel during the Burford case, said the administration’s legal view “turns the constitutional enforcement process on its head. They are saying they will always place a claim of presidential privilege without any judicial determination above a congressional demand for evidence — without any basis in law.” Brand said the position is essentially telling Congress: “Because we control the enforcement process, we are going to thumb our nose at you.”

Certainly when the President believes that the Justice Department is a portion of his overall executive authority, then that is where you end up.

I further concur with this:

Rozell, the George Mason professor and authority on executive privilege, said the administration’s stance “is almost Nixonian in its scope and breadth of interpreting its power. Congress has no recourse at all, in the president’s view. . . . It’s allowing the executive to define the scope and limits of its own powers.”

I predict that this administration’s behavior will result in a seriously renewed call for a Justice Department that is more independent of political control than is currently the case, as it is clear that an executive who believes that all of the power of the branch flows from him personally cannot be fully trusted to directly control federal law enforcement, because said executive will assert the right to selectively enforce the laws. I am not sure what I think about such a move, but it certainly has tempting elements.

In regards to the specific issue on the table, and as I have pondered out loud on numerous occasions over this US Attorney firings business, if there is nothing to the story, why does the White House continually raise the stakes over the issue of simply providing an explanation? I know a lot of my readers think that this is all about a partisan witch hunt, but to me it is about providing an adequate explanation to the American public as to the behaviors of the Bush Justice Department. The executive branch works for us, and I would like the Bush administration to acknowledge that fact, but I fear no such acknowledgment will be forthcoming.

Also, to date it isn’t as if testimony before Congress on this issue has been hideously damaging to the administration. Mostly it has raised more questions than answers, but all of these gyrations make it look like the administration has something rather significant to hide. Yet, the administration and its defenders continue to argue that this is a nothing story.

I still maintain that it is ironic, and quite galling, that this administration in some of its anti-terrorism policies believes that it has the right to information on innocent citizens and takes the attitude that “if you aren’t doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about” yet asserts extreme privacy rights for itself.

Via the BBC: First lady in Argentina poll bid

Argentina’s first lady, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has launched her campaign to become the country’s first elected woman president.

Mrs Kirchner promised change but also pledged to continue what she called the re-founding of the nation.

She announced her candidacy in July after President Nestor Kirchner said he would not be standing for re-election.

[…]

Mrs Kirchner does not like to be called “first lady”, preferring instead “first citizen”, the BBC’s Latin American affairs analyst Martin Murphy says.

She is a senator for the province of Buenos Aires and has her own political clout.

It is sort of the accelerated Clinton plan, I guess.

Marc Lynch (aka Abu Aardvark), a political scientist who specializes in the Middle East, has a very interesting post that all who are convinced that The Surge fixed Anbar and Diyala and made the Sunni love Uncle Sam needs to read: : Sunni insurgency: Out of the shadows.

The money quotes:

These are the same groups about which I’ve often written (the Guardian names Iraqi Hamas, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the new Ansar al-Sunna,  Jaish al-Islami, Jaish al-Mujahideen, Jama’ and Jaish al-Rashideen), coming together around the same political agenda:  distaste for al-Qaeda, but armed resistance as long as the United States keeps forces in Iraq and a demand for reshaping the Iraqi political system to better represent Sunni interests.  These [Sunni insurgent] leaders also say that it is their belief that the US will soon withdraw its forces, and not the strength of the American ’surge’, which has prompted their decision to step forward into the public political realm (”it is a common view in the resistance that [the US] will start to withdraw within a year…. Right or wrong, that is one of the factors that has led to the decision to form the new front, which is planned to be called the Political Office for the Iraqi Resistance.”)

These moves by the major insurgency factions over the last several months don’t fit well within the preferred American narrative. Their actions are not motivated by the ’surge’, but rather by the belief that the US will soon leave. Their hostility to the Islamic State of Iraq/al-Qaeda does not translate into support for the United States or the current Iraqi government.

One needs to read the entire piece.

Of the pro-Surge arguments that I have read, I have never seen any evidence that the Sunni have befriended the United States, turned on al Qaeda yes, but that doesn’t mean that they have become our pals. It is dreadfully important that we have a realistic assessment of the politics on the ground if the proper direction is to be pursued. Nonetheless:

hese factions have been articulating these positions very clearly and consistently for several months now. But they repeatedly seem to be marginalized or discounted because they don’t fit the American narrative, in which al-Qaeda is the primary enemy and most Sunnis and insurgency groups are switching to the American side. I really hope that American officials don’t really believe their own propaganda and are paying attention to the really significant developments on the Sunni side - because if not, then the political resolution which everyone seems to agree is needed will never be achieved.

One would hope, but one does not get the sense that this administration is prone to such behavior. They tend to like to see the world they want to see, not the world that they are actually having to deal with (and hence, the mess).