Over time, election calendars may get blurred, though. The UK is a case in point. European elections will take place in May 2009 but England will also see many local elections in May/June 2010 and a national election maybe even before that. Ideally, during a five-year mandate your electorate would be able to vote locally two-and-a-half years into the term of one's office. So much for studying government at the London School of Economics, to which I am forever indebted!
Recently there seems to be a national consensus in Turkey when it comes to accepting that public opinion polls do not endanger, but foster democracy. I have seen polls being commissioned by social actors close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) as well as public opinion surveys attributed to organizations close to the Republican Peoples' Party (CHP).
As long as these surveys are carried out with scientific and ideally neutral standards in place -- think about the people who decide about the samples -- opinion polls are a vital tool for our decision makers. Welcome to the club of opinion poll aficionados! Do polls decide elections? Not really. Do we learn from them what the voters really want? Probably. Shall our political leaders base all their decisions on percentage points and ratings alone? Of course not.
Turkish and most other local elections have two important features in common: partisanship and issues. One such issue which many foreign -- and apparently many Turkey-based commentators alike -- confuse is the difference between building a functioning civil society and the tearing apart of a nation. Let me elaborate by writing about language. To be more precise, regional varieties and altogether separate languages can perhaps be found in the same country.
In September 2008 the British Broadcasting Corporation launched a Scottish Gaelic digital TV station available by satellite all over the United Kingdom. Its name is Alba, which means Scotland in the Gaelic language. It is the first multi-genre channel being produced entirely in Scotland and with most of its program contents being made there, too.
It is live on-air for a maximum of seven hours per day and online viewing is possible. A separate and much more established BBC Two Scotland program in Gaelic shall continue at least for the time being. Some 650,000 viewers tuned in to BBC Alba during its first two months. There was of course public consultation during 2007 -- new laws as well as new TV stations should be put to the test, either by stakeholder analysis (another form of opinion poll, only much more detailed) or simple questionnaires. From 2010 onwards the minimum number of continuous viewers of BBC Alba is estimated to be at least 250,000. In other words, if it drops below that threshold, the station may be closed down.
BBC management says BBC Alba programs "have a positive impact at many levels, including increasing artistic and technical skills, extending economic opportunities, stimulating parents' interest in Gaelic medium education, appealing to and serving the adult learners and strengthening Gaelic usage in extremely important media." There are live news broadcasts as well as two hours of children's TV in the Gaelic language.
Was this an issue in local politics in Scotland and beyond? You bet! Has it divided the United Kingdom? Of course not. Local and regional languages -- speaking from a purely linguistic perspective -- must be preserved and recorded. They are our window to our own heritage and past. The way we talk and write is the way we live and used to live. Some are for the linguistic museum of past languages while others are relevant today and in the future. I am not a romanticist dreaming about Scotland as it once was, nor do I want to see the clock turned back in Turkey. So, where is the link between what I have said so far and the current debate in Turkey about its brand new Kurdish language and public TV station TRT 6?
If what works for BBC Alba holds true here, an economic stimulus is something Turkey needs. Jobs must be created where people live -- constantly being on the move seems to be against the Turkish tradition. You move if you are forced to -- and this mostly happens because of economic worries.
I for one am looking forward to a lively Turkish local election campaign. May the best candidates -- hopefully many more women among them -- win and work for the entire Turkish nation and not only for a small and very wealthy minority with bank accounts safely deposited in offshore locations. With only some more years before Turkey's EU accession, Turkey must learn how to implement social inclusion, not practice social exclusion. Banning regional identities and in particular the free usage of their languages leads to social unrest, not TRT 6, or BBC Alba for that matter.
