This time the opposition is trying a new strategy. It’s holding a primary.

There are a lot of opposition parties in Venezuela, at least a dozen at the national level, from all across the political spectrum. Individually, none of them can hold a candle to President Chavez and his ruling United Socialist Party, in terms of either popularity or resources. But together… they might have a chance.

The one-day primary on February 12th will select a single candidate that all parties opposing Chavez have agreed to support in the general election. The clear frontrunner is Henrique Capriles, 39-year-old governor of one of Venezuela’s biggest states. On the campaign trail, Capriles talks about tackling inflation and crime, and about getting out the vote.

“No one should fail to vote on February 12th,” said Capriles at a recent campaign stop. “It’s going to be a historic day for all Venezuelans.”

This is the first time the various opposition parties in Venezuela agree to hold a unified primary. The nationwide voting is open to all Venezuelans, regardless of party affiliation. Exactly how many show up could give an indication of how strong the anti-Chavez vote could be in October.

The opposition’s Coalition for Democratic Unity is hoping to build on its success two years ago. That’s when it made big gains against Chavez’s party in parliamentary elections.

“That vote showed that the country was fairly evenly divided between those who were supporting the governing party and those who were supporting various opposing parties in that election,” says Jennifer McCoy, director the Americas Program at the Carter Center. “So the opposition feels that this election could be quite competitive.”

Still, Chavez remains a formidable opponent. His critics accuse the Chavez administration of derailing former opposition frontrunner Leopoldo Lopez, by charging him with corruption. Lopez was banned from holding public office through at least 2014.

Also, despite problems like high inflation and a soaring crime rate, Chavez’s approval ratings are above 50 percent and trending up. The president’s ratings may have been boosted by his being back in the public eye, after his long absences last year while receiving cancer treatments in Cuba.

“He’s creating a very important magical environment,” says Luis Vicente León of the Caracas polling firm Datanalisis. “He’s like Harry Potter against Voldemort in the last chapter. He’s coming from the dead.”

But Leon, who spoke recently at an event organized by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Latin American Program, says there’s another, more troubling scenario for Chavez. If his illness returns, Leon thinks the 57-year-old incumbent Chavez could have a hard time against a younger, more energetic challenger like the 39-year-old Capriles.

That scenario isn’t rattling Chavez, at least not in public. To prove his fitness, he recently gave a nine hour speech before Congress. And he’s been boasting that he’s certain to win re-election in October. But the Venezuelan president also predicts that when he wins, it’s certain that his detractors in Venezuela and in Washington will accuse him of fraud.

I have not been to Islamabad, or even Pakistan, in over two and a half years. After the killing of Osama bin Laden by American special forces last year, visas were hard to come by. Still, I managed to get a visa last week, just in time to accept an unusual invitation.

It came in an email just after Christmas. Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, who has been living in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai since leaving politics in 2008. But Musharraf planned to stage a return to both active politics and Pakistan with a high-profile flight into Karachi planned at the end of January. I, along with a number of other journalists, was invited to buy a ticket for what promised to be a dramatic return.

After all, I had been in Karachi on October 18, 2007, when Benazir Bhutto returned from her own self-imposed exile to contest elections. The streets were jammed with hundreds of thousands of cheering supporters. As Bhutto’s convoy crawled along its route, I waited under an overpass. Realizing she was still more than an hour away, I returned to my hotel to file my report.

I saw the explosions happen, at the very spot I had been standing earlier, on the television in my room. 139 people died, 450 others were injured.

Bhutto herself was unhurt, though when I interviewed her two days later, she complained that her ears were still ringing from the blasts. Still, she vowed to carry on. And she did, until she was assassinated just over two months later on December 27th.

In Pakistan’s tumultuous and dramatic political stage, the ghost of Bhutto undeniably haunted Musharraf’s planned return. Even as the preparations grew more intense the government, (headed by Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari ), made it clear Musharraf would be arrested if he returned, on charges relating to the death of Bhutto.

Musharraf’s officials insisted the former president was not deterred. He admitted he knew the risk but planned to go anyway. So I booked a flight to Dubai, still not certain he would actually take the gamble, not certain I would see the former president who seized power in a coup return to try to cloak himself in the mantle of democracy.

On Friday, as I flew from London, Musharraf’s top advisers did the talking for him. He would not return at this time, they said; instead he would wait for better conditions inside the country.

That does not mean there aren’t plenty of other stories of political intrigue to tell from inside Pakistan. There is the continuing power struggle between the government, the military and the judiciary that is threatening to destabilize the country even further. There is the deteriorating state of relations between the US and Pakistan, exacerbated by American drone strikes, a cross border attack that left Pakistani soldiers dead and of course, the daring American mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s admission that a Pakistani doctor helped the CIA by collecting evidence of bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan probably will not help. Nor will Panetta’s thinly veiled criticism of Pakistani officials for holding the doctor in custody pending potential charges of treason.

And so that is why Musharraf’s change of plans did not deter me, it simply meant buying the ticket that brought me to Islamabad in the middle of the night. Now I can only hope it will not take too long for Musharraf to reimburse me for the flight that never happened.

“Patience,” I say to myself.

But now, as President Ma begins his second-term, some expect China to start ratcheting up pressure to build stronger political ties, and move Taiwan closer to reunification with China.

An early sign of that came in a post-election statement from Beijing. An anchor on China’s state-run television read a summary: “The Mainland is willing to join hands with the people of Taiwan from all walks of life, as they break new ground in peaceful development in cross-straits relations.”

Then came the kicker.

“This is on the basis of continuing to oppose Taiwan independence, and sticking to the 1992 consensus.”

The 1992 consensus really wasn’t a consensus. Beijing sees it as an agreement with Taiwan that there is one China, and it’s the People’s Republic of China, the PRC, with Taiwan as its province.

Taipei sees the agreement as the two sides agree to disagree on what “one China” means. For many Taiwanese, it’s a divided China, which may or may not ever reunite.

Actually, these days, a majority of Taiwanese identify themselves as Taiwanese, rather than Chinese, and don’t want to move toward reunification any time soon, and there are signs China’s getting impatient with that.

“China suffers from the rising challenger’s disease,” said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, who was in Taiwan for the elections. Roy was referring to how China is increasingly challenging the United States and the status quo in their balance of power – especially related to Taiwan. He said China went easy on President Ma for a couple of years – increasing trade, improving ties, making no threats, and saying it could be patient.

“In short order,” Roy said, “we started hearing about debates breaking out among Chinese elites about whether China’s policy was being too tolerant toward Taiwan, allowing Taiwan to take advantage of the concessions China was offering without offering anything in return to the Chinese, the benefits the Chinese wanted, the political benefits.”

By that he means, political benefits that would draw Taiwan inextricably into Mainland China’s orbit, as increasing economic dependence already has.

Last October, Ma raised the possibility of a peace accord with China. It created an uproar in Taiwan. So he backed off and said he’d never do such a thing without a referendum. His re-election won’t change that, he said this weekend.

“That doesn’t mean I will go even faster,” Ma said, after his victory this weekend. “I will control the pace to make sure people can support it.”

Good thing, too, because while Ma won a majority, it was a much smaller majority than last time. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party got almost 46 percent of the vote, which could be a useful thing for Ma to point out to China’s leaders, if they pressure him for more concessions. Push too much, he could say, and you risk having a DPP president next time around. The DPP tends to favor a separate Taiwan identity.

The question is whether that’s enough incentive for China to stay patient. Denny Roy of the East-West Center said there’s one thing Beijing is increasingly impatient about – US arms sales to Taiwan.

“Arms sales remain an impending train wreck,” Roy said. “The Ma Ying-jeou position, that arms sales contribute to peaceful cross-strait relations, is the exact opposite of the PRC position, that arms sales contribute to tensions across the Taiwan Strait. One must assume that there’s a limit to Chinese tolerance of that contradiction.”

Roy added that the strength of the US commitment to Taiwan seems – unofficially – to be ebbing. At the same time, China is fast building up its military capability for, among other things, taking control of a populated island like Taiwan.

But that’s not really how China’s leaders want to play it. They’re also doing outreach to ordinary Taiwanese people, offering scholarships and cultural events. They’d rather seduce than overpower — far less messy, far less costly. But the suitor seems to be getting tired of waiting, and many Taiwanese wonder whether President Ma has the strength to hold out, and the canniness to keep China playing a softer game.

President Obama, you can relax. This story isn’t about you. It’s about Taiwan’s incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou. He’s up for re-election on Saturday, and the race is too close to call.

Ma defended his record this week.

“I have actually accomplished a lot in the last four years” – for instance, calmed down tensions with China, opened up direct flights, shipping and postal services, signed new trade agreements, created jobs, lowered inflation, boosted economic growth and worked to clean up corruption. So Ma’s asking for another term.

“In the first four years, I worked to reorient Taiwan back on the right track,” he said. “I think I have largely accomplished what I set out to do.”

It seems many Taiwanese think differently. The challenger, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP, has almost as much support as Ma, the incumbent.

Tsai’s spokeswoman, Hsiao Bi-Khim, said it’s about the economy.

“We have been critical of the way that benefits have not been adequately distributed in our society over the past few years,” Hsiao said. “For example, we have experienced a GDP growth rate. However, we believe that the wealth created, the growth created, is concentrated only among a few select businesses or interest groups.”

“We have to give them a little room. For me, I think even four years is not enough,” said Alice Chen.

Chen’s talking about both Ma Ying-jeou and Barack Obama. Chen lives in Seattle and has dual Taiwanese and US citizenship, so she’ll be voting in two presidential elections this year.

“Obama’s first term, I didn’t vote for him. I voted for more experienced, McCain,” Chen said. “But since Obama’s point is take care of everyone, everyone should have health insurance, he tried. Then I realized, I have to support him, because I like his policy.”

Same with Ma Ying-jeou, she said. Her brother, Keenan Chang, who lives in Taiwan, strongly agrees.

“After Ma Ying-jeou took power, we don’t worry about a war with China.

We don’t want war, we want peace,” Chang said.

He added that Taiwan’s last president, Chen Shui-bian, from the DPP, played an unnecessary and dangerous game of brinksmanship with China, which hurt Taiwan’s economy. He worries about what another DPP president might do.

But many DPP supporters worry that President Ma may give Mainland China too much, and erode Taiwan’s autonomy in the process.

Still, on the way to a rally for President Ma, I bump into a DPP supporter.

“Before, I never attend the KMT rally,” said the man, referring to Ma’s party. “So I want to see how many people, and what are the elements.”

After that, he said, he planned to move on to see his preferred candidate – Tsai Ing-wen. The man told me that he hoped for a woman president.

“I think woman is better,” he said. He also thinks President Ma is too beholden to elites and special interests, even if he does give Ma credit for working out a more constructive relationship with China.

At the rally, a packed crowd gives Ma credit for that and more.

“I have confidence in Ma. He’s been doing very well over the last four years, and he’s got a big horizon,” said Karen Zuo, another Taiwanese-American who’s returned to vote.

Zuo’s father was in Chiang Kai-shek’s army, and went with him to Taiwan in 1949.

For most of the time since, China’s insistence that Taiwan is a province that must reunite with the Motherland has kept Taiwan on edge.

The past four years have been different – the demand hasn’t gone away, but it’s been muted. So, in this election, voters can afford to think more about domestic issues, and about Taiwan’s future as Taiwan.

Whoever wins tomorrow, that’s no small accomplishment.

In his last State of the Nation speech as president, Dmitry Medvedev outlined several steps to simplify Russian election rules and give voters more power.

The promises come just two days ahead of the next big demonstrations in Moscow.

Thousands of people are expected to protest Sunday against alleged fraud in the parliamentary elections earlier this month.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks to Julia Ioffe, Foreign Policy magazine Moscow correspondent, about the unrest in Russia ahead of a big opposition rally planned for Saturday.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH in Boston. Today, Russia’s president tried to soothe tensions in the country with a promise of reform. In his last state of the nation speech as president, Dmitry Medvedev outlined several steps to simplify Russian election rules and to give voters more power. The promises come just two days ahead of the next big election demonstrations in Moscow. Tens of thousands of people are expected to attend the protests Saturday against alleged fraud in the last Russian elections earlier this month. Julia Ioffe is Foreign Policy magazine’s Moscow correspondent. Is what Dmitry Medvedev said today likely to placate anybody, especially as it comes just as this big protest is happening on Saturday?

Julia Ioffe: You know, I don’t think it’s going to placate anybody really because since September 24 when he and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced that they would simply switch jobs come March, Medvedev has been seen as a very weak figure, as an extremely lame duck. And the reforms are seen as too little too late. The fact that the dim elections have already passed, it’s been almost a month, and there won’t be another set of elections for another five years, so that coupled with the fact that it’s coming from the mouth of a very weak political figure that nobody really takes seriously doesn’t instill much hope.

Mullins: So here we have a weakened president. We have someone also who has been somewhat on the fringe of popular culture of social media in Russia, who seems to be gaining in popularity; this is a man named Alexei Navalny, who was released after 15 days in jail. This happened yesterday when he was released. He has been blogging against the government and in doing so he’s really captured the limelight. How come?

Ioffe: Navalny is a very talented politician. He’s also the only competent effective promising, viable figure that the opposition has. The reason that so many people have come out to protest, the reason that United Russia could barely garner 50 percent of the vote even with massive fraud, a lot of that has to do with the grassroots work that he’s been doing over the past year in cultivating the image of United Russia as a party of crooks and thieves, which is a phrase he coined.

Mullins: This is Medvedev’s party.

Ioffe: Yes, this Medvedev’s and it was created to support Putin.

Mullins: So does that mean that Navalny is a politician, a possible opposition leader because this is a man who is popular, but he has many detractors who say he’s a nationalist, and for them being a nationalist is synonymous with being a skinhead or a fascist. What does he stand for?

Ioffe: Navalny’s main issue is fighting corruption, which takes up most of his time mostly because there’s so very much of it in Russia because it’s becoming not just a thing that greases the wheels in an ineffective system, but something that hobbles the system, slows it down. Another issue is the abuse of power and privilege — things like VIP sirens on official cars that allow the cars that have them to circumvent all traffic laws, which often causes deadly accidents which are then covered up, and the police help in the coverup. Another issue is dealing with migration. Russia has the second largest migrant population in the world after the US. The rate at which Russia, especially Moscow has seen the influx of migrants from former Soviet republics in central Asia, from Russian republics in the north caucuses has been really big. So this is an actual issue that needs dealing with. The problem is in dealing with them Navalny often finds himself speaking alongside the more radical and actually more racist figures. And I think Navalny underestimated the size of his natural constituency, which is the middle class, the white collar workers, what is called in Russia the office plankton. And I think by reaching out to the nationalists, which is very organized, very anti-Kremlin group, even though it’s a very motley group, think he was trying to expand his electoral base. And doing so however, he has alienated many of the more natural constituency which is again, lawyers, doctors, accountants, consultant, designers, journalists, etc.

Mullins: So would there be, just to help us understand what that all amounts to in terms of maybe our concept of politics, what does it mean?

Ioffe: Here’s the thing: Russian liberals are not European liberals or even American liberals. Russians are far more conservative on the whole than their European counterparts. And Navalny is the classic Russian liberal, which on the American spectrum would put him somewhere in the kind of moderate Republican territory. If it’s any kind of barometer, in the 2008 election, observing it from Russia, they told me he supported McCain rather than Obama.

Mullins: So on Saturday then to what extent can you expect that Medvedev and Putin will be watching and even counting the numbers of people who show up at this protest? What’s at stake for them?

Ioffe: Well, there’s nothing at stake for Medvedev because Medvedev is a political nonentity. I think Putin will be waiting to see how many people come out and to see if the very small concessions mostly in words that he’s made over the last two weeks will have been enough to ease up pressure on the system without him having to concede too much power. As for Navalny, if people don’t fall back asleep after the March presidential elections I think you can expect to hear much more from him and maybe even see him as the next president of Russia.

Mullins: Julia Ioffe, Moscow correspondent for Foreign Policy magazine, thank you.

Ioffe: Thanks so much.

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Anchor Marco Werman talks to Kinshasa-based reporter Michael Kavanagh.

He says the country’s leading opposition figure claims he won the disputed presidential poll and Congolese are girding for violence.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The scenario is all to familiar in Africa. An election is held but neither front runner wants to admit defeat. It happened in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ivory Coast. Now it’s happening in the Democratic Pubic of Congo. The country’s president, Joseph Kabila, has claimed victory in last month’s election. Official results announced last week back him up. Kabila is rejecting accusations that the vote was rigged in his favor. Several international observers, including the Georgia based Carter Center, have questioned the votes legitimacy. Opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi continues to insist that he was the elections real winner. Reporter Michael Kavanagh is based in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.

Michael Kavanagh: In Kinshasa it’s very tense. Basically the opposition is waiting to see how this process unfolds. They’ve taken the vote to the Supreme Court. They’ve challenged the vote at the supreme court. We’re expecting a decision on the 17th so I think that people are concerned thought that there could be mass protests in the streets if the election doesn’t go the way that the opposition wants.

Werman: Then tension right now has to be heightened in a certain way by the fact that the main opposition party led by Etienne Tshisekedi apparently it sounds like they’re gearing up for something.

Kavanagh: Right, and we’ve known this for awhile. I think the reality of this situation is that Tshisekedi has been an opposition leader for several decades here in Congo and he frankly has been a relatively peaceful one. He hasn’t joined militias, he hasn’t been a rebel, and his supporters for the most part don’t have weapons. So that means that they’re going to need to take to the streets. He keeps talking about the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt and that’s what his followers are prepared to do is go to the streets without weapons knowing that they’re going to face a quite powerful security surface who basically supports the president and thinks that he won the election and feel like this is a major disturbance to public order and a challenge to the government of the country.

Werman: To an extent we saw the same sort of scenario a year ago in Ivory Coast where two powerful leaders dug in their heels over election results and then that resulted in massive violence for four months until the situation got settled. It sounds like you’re concerned about a similar scenario shaping up for Congo. Are others worried about that?

Kavanagh: That is definitely the biggest concern and the worst case scenario that we have. The situation in [?] was a little bit different in that you had two national institutions who basically had come up with two different results for the election. That’s not going to be true here. The Supreme Court supports Kabila just as they electoral has supported Kabila. It means that the international community is much less apt to back Tshisekedi and the opposition in this fight. They’re going to be much less patient with him when his supporters go out into the street.

Werman: Now, incumbent President Joseph Kabila says he won the election fair and square. Tshisekedi says no, so does the European Union Mission, the Atlanta based Carter Center, and the Catholic Church all there who are watching this. They say last months election wasn’t credible. What is the starkest evidence right now of fraud? Is there widespread agreement that fraud happened?

Kavanagh: Yes, these elections looked like the counting was done in a very untransparent manner. There are some very suspicious results from parts of the country where Kabila is popular where they had over 100% turnout and 100% of the voters voting for Kabila. That kind of thing never happens in an election and so these are the sorts of things that observers are worried about. Their votes, thousands, perhaps at one point 6 million votes have gone missing. Again, will that change the results? We just don’t know.

Werman: There had been such hope in recent years that this presidential election in Congo would be key to helping stabilize a country and reduce the violence actually in several theaters of conflict in Congo. Is there now a sense among Congolese that these elections are in fact the wrong direction, maybe they’re even destabilizing further their country?

Kavanagh: I think that is a worry that you hear, especially here in the capital of Kinshasa, they feel like their vote was stolen and they feel like Kabila has lost legitimacy. They feel like this democratic process which was promised to them as the thing that would change Congo and bring development and bring peace, it’s not all that it was supposed to be. Of course, the thing to remember is that Kabila was elected with quite a lot of votes in parts of the country. So it’s not as if this election is under question from the entire population of Congo. I think the question is just does he have enough support to remain legitimate? Will the international still support him? Can he find ways to build bridges to the opposition so that this country which is so rich and yet on the other hand so poor in terms of what the people actually have, can it develop to a point where it’s more stable in the next few years? For the moment, I think the jury is still out.

Werman: We’ll stay on top of it as things unfold. Reporter Michael Kavanagh, based in the Congolese capital Kinshasa. Thanks very much indeed.

Kavanagh: Thanks, Marco.

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Swedish cartoonist Olle Johansson has Vladimir Putin feelin’ the love after tens of thousands of Russians take to the streets to protest his rule.

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There are approximately two million Nubians in Egypt. They’re skeptical of Egypt’s politicians, but hopeful that their long-standing status as outsiders might change.

Ahmed As’haka sits drinking tea with milk at a Nubian community center in downtown Cairo. A small group of men play dominos nearby.

As’haka lives in Cairo — and will vote here — but his heart is with his hometown.

“I have lived in Cairo, but I was born, I grew up in the village of Tomas in old Nubia. And so I am, like all the Nubians, attached to old Nubia,” As’haka said.

The old Nubia he refers to is an area of Southern Egypt that was flooded in the 60s for the construction of the Aswan High Dam and Lake Nasser. Nubians have lived in Egypt along the Nile for thousands of years, working as farmers and fishermen. Today, many of the approximately two million Egyptian Nubians – like As’haka – bristle at their lack of political representation.

“We had two parliamentary seats that were taken from us in the 1970s,” As’haka said. “We have tried to get these two districts inside the parliament but such attempts were not taking seriously. We tried to get these districts after the revolution but we are still waiting.”

The thing about Nubians is while their numbers are low, they tend to unify behind a cause. So Asha’ka and others are pondering the same questions as many Egyptian minorities: in a democratic Egypt, how can we best exert political influence?

In the Nubian village of Armena in Southern Egypt, men walk down dry, dusty streets. When the government built the dam thousands of Nubians were resettled, many away from the fertile Nile Valley on a high desert.

64-year-old English teacher Abdullah Mohamad Abdel Fatah says that in the months before the election many parties have come looking for Nubian support – including the new Free Egyptians Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. Fatah says none of these parties will address Nubian demands.

“All the Nubians know who will love them who will stand before them, who will come to take their voice and after that will never ask about them,” Fatah said. “They know who will never care about them.”

That’s why Fatah is running on the Socialist Party ticket in Aswan. His campaign pledge is to return Nubia to the banks of Lake Nasser.

“To returning to our old nation on the banks of the lake. And after the elections if I was succeeding in my plan I will carry out in returning to Nubia,” Fatah said.

But that’s a tough campaign promise. This territory on the edge of Lake Nasser is hugely valuable – in fact it’s some of Egypt’s most fertile agricultural land. Lawyer Fady Saleh says the Mubarak regime made corrupt deals for much of that land including with billionaire Saudi Prince Waleed Bin Talal. And he says the military owns some of the land too.

“The resistance is vicious because they are not defending principles, they are defending billions of dollars so it won’t be an easy fight,” Saleh said.

Manal Tibe of the Egyptian Center for Land Rights says her organization has filed a lawsuit with the Egyptian government over the land, and even though it may sound ludicrous she’s actually optimistic.

“I’m optimistic but not on the side of the government,” Tibe said. “They are the same before the revolution as after the revolution unfortunately but many of the Nubians who were silent and don’t talk now started to talk and organize demonstrations and express their opinion and claiming for their rights.”

Lawyer Fady Saleh agrees, and he says that’s why he’s forming coalitions with political parties so that Nubians can petition for their rights together.

“I consider this a must that us Nubians have to constitute a lobby,” Saleh said.

A line of more than 1,200 women lined up in Ma'adi, a suburb of Cairo, to vote on Monday. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Egyptians lined up and voted on Monday.

Despite a stormy run-up to the vote, the turnout was high and the atmosphere calm.

These are the first free elections in Egypt since the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak. His regime buckled after a wave of massive protests demanded his ouster.

Last week, the protesters were back in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand that Egypt’s generals also step aside. Deadly clashes followed.

But on Monday, it was the casting of ballots that made headlines.

Just after 8 a.m in the well-to-do Cairo suburb of Ma’adi, a line of more than 250 men waited to cast their votes inside a middle school. A handful of Egyptian soldiers stood guard, wearing green camouflage, with AK-47s in hand. The site was crowded, but calm. People seem excited about voting day, including school teacher Ibrahim Youssef.

“This is a historic day,” he said. “The elections process will allow a civilian government to take over from the military. And Egypt can finally claim its rightful place in the world.”

But that will take a while. Egypt’s new voting system is complicated and drawn out. It’s taking place on a staggered schedule in different parts of the country. The plan is to have both houses of Parliament in place by March of next year. But voters here are still encouraged.

Khaled Fowzi is a 32 year-old businessman. He said what’s going on here is very different from election days during the Mubarak era.

“Each candidate has his own team who hands out fliers. Usually these people are very violent with each other, they’re armed, they have knives and so on. But this morning, I saw them, they were very, you know, organizing each other in a very civil way, discussing ‘you take this side of the street, we’ll take this side.’ I think this is a very positive sign as well.”

While the relative calm was a good sign, handing out fliers near polling stations is technically a violation of the ban on last-minute campaigning. In other instances, cars blasted political messages from loudspeakers. Some polling sites opened up late this morning. Many of them demanded real patience.

In another part of the Ma’adi suburb, for example, more than 1,200 women cued up in a separate line at a high school for girls. It was a mixed crowd of upper and middle class women, some more conservatively dressed than others. One of them, who gave her name as Noor, wore a full black veil that shows only her eyes.

But she said religion isn’t the top issue for her as a voter.

“The most important thing,” she said, “is for Egyptians to be able to live together in peace and be free.” She added, “it doesn’t matter if a candidate is an Islamist or not. What Egypt really needs is better education.”

Men lined up at another polling site in the working class Cairo neighborhood of Shubra. Volunteers from the Muslim Brotherhood were there with a laptop set up, and helped voters make sure they’re in the right location to vote.

Yasser Bahaa was a bit frustrated that the site opened two and a half hours late and that some would-be voters went home.

“Our goal for today that everybody here vote,” he said. “I mean, even if the time finish, then we should put all the people standing outside inside the school, close the door and keep them even until midnight, until they finish.”

That message goes against the calls from activists in Tahrir Square. Many of them say this election is illegitimate because it’s being run by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces – in fact by the exact same group who engineered last year’s fraud-ridden polling under former president Hosni Mubarak.

Demonstrators want the military to hand over power to a civilian government immediately. The square is still occupied but numbers dropped today. Still, staunch supporters of the protests, like Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Eissa, said they can’t stop now.

“I think there can be no half-revolution,” he said. “It should be completed. The military council is part of the old regime. The aim of the revolution is to get rid of this regime from the roots and to re-build.”

But the Egyptians who turned out at the polls today seemed to think that the best way to start rebuilding is to take part in the elections and to go from there.

Matthew Bell on Posterous

BBC Coverage

Journalists tweeting from Egypt:
• The World’s Matthew Bell
• The BBC’s Lyse Doucet
• Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros
• Financial Times’ Borzou Daragahi
• CBC’s Derek Stoffel

Read tweets about the protests in Egypt

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: Neighboring Tunisia is looking ahead after holding the first free elections of the Arab Spring. It’s been 9 months since the fall of Tunisia’s long-time ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. He’s now in exile in Saudi Arabia; thought to be living off the considerable wealth that he and his family accumulated during his 23 years in power. Tunisia wants to get those assets back. The interim government in Tunis has hired Enrico Monfrini and his Swiss law firm to do the job. Enrico Monfrini has worked on other cases recovering assets from corrupt regimes. He says there are common elements to such cases.

Enrico Monfrini: There is a head of state and there is his entourage and his friends who all make money in a rather criminal manner. So the ‘kleptocrats’, if I can call them like that…

Mullins: Kleptocracy.

Monfrini: They normally steal or help others to steal, but they close their eyes to thefts committed by others and they normally don’t enrich themselves that much. It’s more to do with their wife’s children, nephews, sons-in-law, friends of their cronies and you name it.

Mullins: Give us a good example that you’ve run into of how that happens.

Monfrini: Well, for instance, there is this son-in-law of Mr. Ben Ali. This guy wants to import Mercedes Benz cars into Tunisia. He goes to Ben Ali and says, “Give me the right to have the exclusive license to import Mercedes Benz cars into Tunisia,” and he gets that.

Mullins: So the son-in-law gets a license to import Mercedes Benz cars into Tunisia. People who are wealthy enough can afford them. He gets incredibly rich off something like this? Is that right?

Monfrini: He can, he can, because he starts with Mercedes Benz and then imports Toyota, and then he’ll become like the king of the expensive cars in Tunisia.

Mullins: So where do you go with something like this as an example? Where do you go with something like that?

Monfrini: I am in search of the money which this guy made.

Mullins: Which he made…and how do you even begin to look for them.

Monfrini: This is only an example you asked me to give. So, I look into that because I am given documents in Tunisia. And that’s where I am going soon to be able to start my investigation to gather information about the targets – people you want to go after, different accomplices and so forth. So you need a list. You need to know how they are linked to the power or the former power. You need to gather documents which the authorities have in order to try to identify the existence of the first possible accounts available here and there. Not necessarily in Switzerland where I work from, but in other countries.

Mullins: Ultimately, what do you expect to find? Do you have any idea what 100% of the holdings might be worldwide from Ben Ali?

Monfrini: No. I don’t know how much. I know that I will probably find quite a lot of money, but I don’t know how much.

Mullins: And what kind of assets are we talking about then?

Monfrini: Money, real estate, participation in different businesses in France, Canada, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, many countries of the Middle East and so forth.

Mullins: Anything here in the US?

Monfrini: Most probably, yes.

Mullins: Most probably, where?

Monfrini: I can’t tell you [laughs]. I can’t tell you because I just started. Maybe, if you call me in 2 weeks or 3 weeks, I’ll be able to give you more details, but at this stage I don’t know. I just have a few clues.

Mullins: Well, let’s say that you do get a few more leads and you are able to find what you believe are stolen assets, how do you go about proving that you can tie them to the former Tunisian President?

Monfrini: Well, that’s the easiest thing to do because the proof comes with the accounts. So, when I manage to identify the existence of 1 or 10, 20 or 100s or 1,000s of accounts around the world, I go to these various countries and I ask the authorities of these countries to cooperate. And I am sure they will cooperate in this case very much, and they will help us to warn the banks to freeze the money. So, that’s the job.

Mullins: That was Enrico Monfrini of the Swiss law firm, Monfrini Crettol & Partners in Geneva.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Colombia is home to one of Latin America’s oldest democracies. Still, its elections are not always clean and tidy. Facundo Castillo is running for governor of Arauca, an oil-rich state on the Venezuelan border. Castillo gets a warm reception going door-to-door. But his political rivals claim Castillo and his family have close connections to Marxist guerrillas, who control much of the surrounding countryside.

Castillo insists he has no links to the rebels. Serious questions have also been raised about Castillo’s main opponent in the race for governor, Carlos Pinilla. The leader of Pinilla’s own party has denounced him for his ties to a jailed politician who sponsored paramilitary death squads.

Part of the problem in policing local elections is the sheer volume of candidates. There are 130,000 candidates running in the October 30 elections for governor, mayor and local councils. More than 10 percent have criminal records, according to Colombia’s interior minister.

Candidates often campaign in remote areas controlled by guerrillas and drug traffickers. Armed groups have killed about two dozen candidates on the campaign trail over the past five months. In other cases, experts say, the groups are backing candidates with cash.

“It doesn’t sound like democracy,” said Andres Ceballos of the Electoral Observation Mission, an independent monitoring group based in Bogota. He said rebels and drug traffickers want to elect mayors and governors who will turn a blind eye to their criminal activities.

“That collusion between these actors is really what puts at risk the elections,” Ceballos said.

Violence and corruption have also marred recent local elections in Mexico and Central America.

“We’ve seen that in Guatemala, in the Honduran elections, Salvador,” said Nhelly Saleh-Ramirez, of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems in Washington. She added that most outsiders focus on Latin America’s presidential elections, which have been mostly free and fair, but they pay scant attention to state and local races.

“For the most part, the international community feels that the Americas have ‘graduated,’” she said. “But we have definitely seen a backsliding of democracy in the region.”

Intimidation is not the only problem. Out in the sticks, it is easier for candidates to get away with wrongdoing.

In the city of Arauca, a reporter named Eduardo Cedeño recently discovered that one of the mayoral candidates has plagiarized the political platform of another politician. Cedeño said vote buying is also common.

“Gubernatorial candidates will pay up to $40 for people’s votes while mayoral candidates pay $10,” he said.
On the Arauca River, which forms the border with Venezuela, Jose Ceballos makes a living taking passengers across the river in a wooden motor boat. He is 48 and cannot read or write.

He said the Arauca government gets millions in oil revenue, but corruption has left his state mired in poverty.
“On election day, the politicians give you money to vote for them,” he said. “But look at the streets. They’re full of holes. Look at the public housing in Arauca. It’s horrible.”

Gubernatorial candidate Castillo promises a new era of honest government. Yet his campaign tactics have raised eyebrows. Castillo, a doctor, doesn’t buy people’s votes, but he does set up free mobile clinics in the slums of Arauca and personally attends to potential supporters. Castillo’s team also provides dental checkups, soft drinks and haircuts for the kids.

Just to make sure people remember who to vote for, loudspeakers play songs with lyrics extolling the virtues of Facundo Castillo.

Now, Otto Perez Molina, a man who commanded troops during that reign of terror, is poised to be country’s next president.

Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with reporter Franc Contreras in Guatemala City about why voters would embrace someone who represents a once-feared institution.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  Guatemalans cast their ballots in a presidential election over the weekend.  No candidate achieved a majority, but a runoff is going to be held in early November.  That’s not so surprising. What is surprising is that one of the leading contenders for president is a retired army general who commanded troops during Guatemala’s decades long crackdown on Marxist guerillas.  200,000 people died in that struggle and the army was responsible for a majority of those deaths. Reporter Franc Contreras is in Guatamala City now to cover the election.  Help us understand, Franc, why a former army general is favored now to become the next president of a country that turned its back on military rulers about 20 years ago.?

Franc Contreras: Well, this particular army general who’s now the frontrunner to become the next president of Guatemala, Otto Perez Molina, does have a long history fighting communist rebels back in the ’80s.  He was also the man who brought the peace process into fruition in 1996. But now the United States is very concerned about Guatemala because of the drug trafficking problems taking place.  And the tremendous amount of violence related to that issue of drug trafficking and organized crime.  So this man is promising to use what they’re calling mano dura, the hard fist crackdown against organized crime here.  And that’s why he’s showing so well in the polls.

Mullins: So the United States was concerned about the spread of communism back in the era that you’re talking about, 20 years ago, longer than 20 years ago; right now the US is concerned about the drug trafficking.  This presidential candidate is promising to crackdown on that.  Guatemalans themselves have they forgotten what happened 20 years ago?

Contreras: If you take a look at Guatemala’s population right now you’ll see that the vast majority are actually young people who were not even born back in the time when the government was fighting the rebels in the 1980s.  These are young people who are living through a time of economic crisis, of lack of social services, educational systems that are not great, high rates of malnutrition, and so these young people are looking for somebody who can bring the country back to a state of peace, a sense of security.  And so they really think that this former army general is just the man to do that.

Mullins: All right, so there are about 400 Guatemalan communities now that have sent formal requests to the government there to send in soldiers to protect citizens; quite a change from 20 years ago.  Is anybody expressing concerns about having a stepped up military presence now?

Contreras: Definitely, there are human rights activists, even the United Nations has suggested that using the military such as Mexico has been using the military to fight organized crime, that could lead to widespread rights violations.  When you use the military as a police force as Mexico has done, neighboring Mexico, it has created a series of problems. And even the United States government has been very concerned about this Lisa.  There have been high-ranking hearings inside the US congress about whether or not it’s still wise to use military forces in Latin America this way. But in these remote villages in Guatemala, in places where before they hated the military, now they’re thinking that it’s going to be the military that brings them security because so far the government has appeared unable to do that.

Mullins: Well, as you said, in Mexico where the military has been used as a police force, the cartels are still acting with impunity there.  So is that a model or not?

Contreras: That’s the big question really in this entire region because you know, you look at Mexico, Guatemalans are looking at Mexico because they know a number of those Mexican drug trafficking organizations are now operating here in Guatemala.  The Zetas for example, who are a former group of elite forces in Mexico that broke away from the government and became drug traffickers, those people are now operating in Guatemala. So, they’re looking at Mexico’s model and wondering is that really the way forward, but right now things are so grave in terms of security that people are willing to take the risk.  For example, a young woman just told me that she was engaged to be married.  A police officer pulled her over and she was so afraid the police officer was corrupt, that we was going to rob her, that she took off her wedding engagement ring and instead of handing it to the office, she decided to swallow it. These are the kinds of things people are living through on a day-to-day basis.  Armed robberies, extortions, kidnappings, especially here in the Guatemalan capital where I am.

Mullins: So what about Otto Perez Molina who’s running for president, what would he do about that, about organized crime?

Contreras: One of his main goals he says is to create a new intelligence force that will be using the highest level of science to track down criminals and then bring them to justice.  That’s something that simply does not exist in Guatemala or in the rest of Latin America for that matter.

Mullins: All right, reporter Franc Contreras in Guatemala City, Guatemala.  Thank you, Franc.

Contreras: Thank you very much.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. The former prime minister of Thailand was ousted in a military coup five years ago but Thaksin Shinawatra was not forgotten, quite the contrary. Thaksin supporters retain their passion for his populist policies. His enemies remember the Thai leader for his authoritarianism. Thaksin remains in exile in Dubai but yesterday his party won a majority in Thailand’s general election. And his younger sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, will be the next Prime Minister. Reporter Irwin Loy  is in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. Irwin, what and who do Yingluck Shinawatra and her Pheu Thai party represent?

IRWIN LOY: Well they represent what up until now had been the opposition here in Thailand, a very angry opposition you could say. The Pheu Thai party is backed by the Red Shirts. You may remember last year there were the massive protests in Bangkok by people wearing a lot of red shirts and that’s what they came to be known as. They were basically protesting against the government of the day, which lost in Sunday’s election and they’re largely loyal to Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra who was the Prime Minister of Thailand, basically for the first part of this decade until he was ousted in a coup in 2006.

WERMAN: Right, well having been overthrown in a military coup in 2006, will the military in Thailand now accept his sister’s government or is she in their eyes simply new fruit from a poisoned Shinawatra tree?

LOY:   [Laughter] Well I guess that’s a question that remains to be seen.  Right now everyone is saying the right things in terms of, you know building peace in this country. Right now the military is saying, the Army Chief is saying that he’s going to not comment on any of the political issues involving this new government which is, to be fair, a bit of a change from him because he was, throughout the campaign before July third, he was actually saying quite a few things that were disguised but fairly obvious. You know he was talking about asking the voters to remember what happened in terms of political violence, he was asking them to vote for the good people.  And everyone here knows that the military is aligned with the establishment which does not include the Red Shirts and the election of the Pheu Thai party.

WERMAN: Right. Well who is the constituency of the Pheu Thai party? It’s got to be more than just those people in red shirts.

LOY: Definitely. Generally speaking, this all goes back to Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister and Yingluck’s brother. He came to power on the backs of very populist policies. We’re talking about universal healthcare, very strong subsidies for farmers, and this really endeared him to the rural and urban poor here. So those are largely the type of people who still support Thaksin Shinawatra and by extension his sister.  Last night I was at a celebration of sorts for supporters of Pheu Thai and to a man and woman, everyone was talking about what this would mean for their lives. They all identified as lower income or poor people and they said this was really a good thing for them, this victory for the Pheu Thai Party. So whether or not that’s actually true, the image of Thaksin and his populist policies is very much associated with his sister.

WERMAN: So it sounds like the rural poor like his sister, like the Pheu Thai party. How divisive though is the figure of Thaksin Shinawatra, still? Does it bode well for Thaksin’s future in Thai politics with his sister in power now?

LOY: That’s the million dollar question here. Pheu Thai and Yingluck Shinawatra as Prime Minister is widely expected to push for amnesty for certain political figures and that would include Thaksin Shinawatra. But he’s such a controversial figure. While he’s well-loved by the urban and rural poor here, he’s really an offensive character to many of the elite here, the middle and upper class.  So the question is whether or not he will be allowed to return. If his sister pushes for amnesty for Thaksin, there will be some sort of protest, undoubtedly. Whether or not that will end up toppling a government remains to be seen. In the past there have been protests against Thaksin and each time the military really did not step in to remove those protesters. Those were the ones known as Yellow Shirts. Whereas last year when the Red Shirts protested, the army did step in to remove them and it in fact saved the government of the day until this, the election that happened on Sunday. So whether or not Thaksin is given an opportunity to return and whether or not the army steps in, those are the major questions that will determine whether or not the current government will survive into the future.

WERMAN: Reporter Irwin Loy in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. Thanks very much for your time, Irwin.

LOY: Thanks Marco.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Beneath the surface, Thailand remains a deeply divided country, and observers say, the coming election could usher in a period of uncertainty.

On a car speaker, a rock song is broadcast from one of Thailand’s newest radio stations. Although it may sound like a typical tune played on Thai radio, it’s actually soaked in politics. The song is critical of the government, blaming authorities for stifling freedom of speech. It’s a rallying cry of the opposition Red Shirt movement.

And this suburb on the edge of Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, is a heartland of support for the Red Shirts.

Supon Fumooncharoeun is an official within the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, or UDD, as the Red Shirts are officially known. He said the radio station, which hit the airwaves mid-June, is the ideal way to spread the message.
“Every household has a radio,” he said. “It’s the best way to reach out to the people and promote the idea of democracy.”
At the heart of the music is a distrust that infuses the politics of this deeply divided country. The Red Shirts claim that the country’s elite, aided by the military, have repeatedly stolen the government from them and the largely rural power base they say they represent.

The Red Shirts are largely loyal to one man: former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. A wealthy businessman, Thaksin rose to power thanks to populist policies, including health-care reforms and farmer subsidies. Those programs endeared him to the rural pool, especially here in the populist north, where Thaksin was born.

But as strong as the support for Thaksin here, so is the level of distrust for him elsewhere. He was deposed in 2006, by the country’s powerful military, and now lives in exile after being convicted on corruption charges.

Paul Chambers, the director of research at the Southeast Asian Institute of Global Studies at Chiang Mai’s Payap University, said there is “no neutrality to the name Thaksin. You either love the man or you hate him, in Thailand.”

“Thaksin Shinawatra was a very popular, populist prime minister who promised to improve the lot of the poor,” Chambers said. “Indeed, when he was elected, he did initiate policies to increase the quality of life for poor people.”

But some of Thaksin’s reforms, including appointing key allies to the military, also angered the country’s traditional elite.
Chambers said even though Thaksin is now in exile, he’s still front and center in the upcoming election.

After all, Thaksin’s own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, is running for prime minister with the Pheu Thai party, backed by the Red Shirts.

“This election is in many ways about the legitimacy of Thaksin,” Chambers said, “and about whether he and his family can be brought back into politics.”

The seeds of the Red Shirt Movement grew from their frustrations over Thaksin’s ouster. Last year, those frustrations erupted into massive demonstrations that saw tens of thousands of protestors descend on Bangkok and occupy the capital for weeks. Those demonstrations turned deadly when authorities used live fire to break up the protests.

In a campaign stop in Red Shirt territory, the current prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, and his Democrat Party, steered clear of the topic of last year’s bloody crackdown.

Deuntemduang Na-Chiang Mai, a local Democrat candidate, said she wants to look past the protests. “I don’t think this should be the main issue for the people of Thailand,” she said. “It should be other things too, such as economy right now. Who can run the country well to solve our economy problems?”

But for the Red Shirts’ most impassioned believers, the election, and last year’s violent repression are impossible to separate.

Supon, the Red Shirt official, plays a grainy video on his cell phone. In it, people can be seen crouched above a motionless figure. He said he shot the video last May in Bangkok’s Wat Pathum pagoda, where demonstrators huddled for safety as soldiers moved in to clear out the protesters. Of the more than 90 deaths recorded during the protests, six of them took place at the temple. Supon said when he votes on July 3, he’ll be thinking of them.

“It’s really difficult to forget,” he said. “I saw people get shot in Wat Pathum with my own eyes. I feel for the people whose family members were killed.”

For now, Supon said he is hopeful the Pheu Thai party will win. But he is also cautious. Even gaining the most number of seats won’t guarantee they’ll be allowed to form a government. If the party doesn’t win an outright majority, or is unable to convince enough smaller parties to join a coalition, the ruling democrats could take office again.

And if Pheu Thai is barred from forming government, Supon said, the Red Shirts will return to the streets in greater numbers.

But if the party takes office, it’s expected they’ll push for an amnesty allowing Thaksin to return from exile. That would cause an outcry among the forces opposed to him; and anti-Thaksin demonstrators have been quick to take to the streets in the past.

In a country where politics are literally worn on your sleeve, observers say the July 3 election could mark the beginning of a long period of turmoil.

“Either a pro-Thaksin government or an anti-Thaksin government bodes ill for the future stability in Thailand,” Chambers said. “If losers of the election are unable to accept the election results and are wiling to fight in the streets, then that bodes ill for the future of Thai democracy.”

Recent polling suggests the Red Shirt-backed Pheu Thai party are ahead going into the election. Whether it will be enough to lead the country after July 3 remains to be seen.

“If we come to power with more than 367 seats, it’ll mean that the public has given this duty to us,” he said. “We’ll make our preparations and show our work to the parliament. Come join us, let us work together.”

The AKP’s popular mandate has increased by leaps and bounds since it was first elected in 2002. But it is unclear what the government plans to do with its increasing powers. Istanbul-based analyst Andrew Finkel said the dilemma of Erdogan and the AKP is much like that faced by Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings. Staring down into the fires of Mount Doom, Baggins hesitated to throw away the ring of power.

“So they’ve got all this power to themselves. Now they know, just like Frodo knew in the Lord of the Rings, that when you have all this power on your finger, the thing you should do is throw the ring into the fire. But of course, once you have this ring on your finger, it’s really nice to have all this power,” Finkel said.

Erdogan and the AKP are credited with increasing democracy by eliminating political interference from the military and state bureaucracy. But the Prime Minister is famously intolerant of criticism and tends toward autocracy.

At a AKP women’s breakfast campaign event in the wealthy seaside neighborhood of Moda, first-time candidate Meltem Gurler said she is clear about her priority if she gets elected.

“The new constitution,” she said. “Because it is the major issue of the new parliament. The first civilian constitution of Turkey.”

Gurler said fears of an AKP-imposed constitution are nonsense. She said Turks will be asked what kind of constitution they want.

“I think we should listen to the other parties as well, because we need a consensus here, we really need a consensus. It is not so fair to do it by ourselves,” she said.

The music coming from an AKP campaign truck is loud, but it may be reaching deaf ears in Besiktas, a leftist working-class neighborhood in Istanbul and opposition stronghold. The name of the song translates roughly as “AK Party, no matter what.”

Sitting on a park bench, Fethi Satilmis said rewriting the constitution is a big job. It needs to protect the rights of Kurds and everyone in Turkey. He said the AKP is not up for the job.

But Can Paker from Istanbul think-thank Tesev, disagrees. He said Turkish politicians will listen to the people, sooner or later.

“I don’t look at the leaders or the leaders of the parties; I look at the society, because the parties and leaders of parties will eventually do what the majority wants, because it’s their business to stay in power,” he said.

Paker said Turkey has changed a lot since the military coup in 1980. The majority of its citizens can no longer accept a constitution which protects the state from the people instead of the other way around. That’s due largely to the dramatic growth of the middle class. The AK Party is currently polling 45 to 50 percent of the votes. But the final distribution of seats depends on the performance of smaller parties in this weekend’s contest.