What Do People Think About the Elections in Manisa?

While general elections which will be held on June 7, 2015 are coming closer we were in Manisa province to observe people's reactions to the elections.

People in Manisa are not in the mood for elections at all. In 2011, Manisa had five deputies from AKP, three from CHP and two from MHP.

In 2014 Presidential elections, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan got 379.375 votes with 46,13%, Selahattin Demirtaş 46.020 votes with 5.60% and Ekmelettin İhsanoğlu got 396.939 votes with 48,27%.

It is expected Manisa will have nine deputies in forthcoming elections. Local journalists think AKP will lose a deputy but they are still undetermined about the deputies of CHP and MHP. They are not very optimistic for deputies of HDP.

Manisa, an industrial city, has a lot of local and foreign factories. 33.000 students of Manisa Celal Bayar University energize the city.

Erhan Gördes, representative of Manisa Denge Newspaper, says because of the fact that the rate of unemployment in Manisa is very low economic problems are not very serious at all when it's compared with other cities.

According to Gördes, the greatest problem of Manisa is high rents and prices of houses and they are higher than İzmir province. The reason of reconstruction problem is seen as the result of conflict between municipal council members of MHP and AKP.

We met a group of women on our tour and talked to them over the coming elections. One of the women thought that AKP was exploiting the religion and said she was affected negatively with corruption news about AKP. Another woman with a headscarf said she was satisfied with the government and was not affected with bribery and corruption operation at all. Another woman told that she was hopeless and indecisive about the elections. While a woman was complaining about widening of gap between rich and poor, another one shared her ideas and she wouldn't vote for HDP because its support to the PKK.

We came across three young men sitting on a bank. They intended to vote for The Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi), Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

One of the boys said he would vote for Vatan Partisi because they promised to claim 152 islands in the Aegean Sea back which had been taken by Greece. Three of them expressed that they would have voted for MHP if they had had a younger and more energetic leader than Devlet Bahçeli.

One from three stressed that he didn't want to see HDP banners because it was a Kurdish party but the other one didn't agree with that and stated each person had a right to vote and stand for election.

We went to look out HDP's election booth and met four university students, three of them were females. Mehmet Günhan told there were people who tore down HDP's booklets but they didn't meet with awful reaction.

While we were speaking to the students, a police officer was recording our images. When he was asked why, he withdrew and responded "Student is making a press statement." We realized that the police already had been waiting there all day.

In the park, a woman with a headscarf indicated she was glad that she could attend university wearing her headscarf thanks to AKP. Her friend implied she was very nervous about the possibility of Tayyip Erdoğan's presidency.

A farmer living in a village of Manisa complained that agriculture was over so villages were empty and young people left. He expressed young people took on debt for 40 years to buy a home but in the past it was not like that due to agriculture. Farmer put the blame on America and said "It doesn't matter which party comes or goes. It is only America who pulls the strings... What can we do?" He didn't tell us which party he would vote for. (NV/BD)

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