Turkey Holds Snap Elections...possible Black Swan event?

Another Black Swan? Turkey Holds Snap Elections Amid NATO-Backed Civil War | Zero Hedge

There’s a potential black swan event taking place in Turkey on Sunday and no one seems to care. That is, the media isn’t devoting nearly enough coverage to Turkish elections considering the impact the outcome will invariably have on the situation in Syria, on the fate of the lira, and on the Pentagon’s strategy with regard to embedding spec ops with the YPG.

As a reminder, Turkey held elections back in June and the outcome did not please President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

AKP lost its absolute majority in parliament thanks in no small part to a relatively strong showing by the pro-Kurdish HDP and that meant that Erdogan couldn’t move forward with plans to consolidate his power by amending the constitution. Well, if you know anything about Erdogan, you know that he isn’t exactly the type to take these kinds of things lying down, and so, he decided to trade NATO access to Incirlik for Western acquiescence to a crackdown on the PKK.

Of course that’s not how it was pitched to the media.

The official line was that after a suicide bombing in Suruc claimed by ISIS, Ankara decided it was time to go after Islamic State. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s a joke. The PKK and many other observers have long contended that Turkey is complicit in allowing money, guns, and personnel to flow across the border into Syria so that ISIS can continue to destabilize the Assad regime which Ankara opposes. In other words, Erdogan has no interest whatsoever in fighting ISIS. What he does have an interest in is starting a new war with the PKK in order to convince voters that the security situation in Turkey is such that only a dictator can get the situation under control – that’s the whole gambit.

So what Erdogan did was this: he obstructed the coalition building process in the wake of June’s elections, started a civil war in order to try and convince voters that supporting HDP was a mistake, then called for new elections in November which he hopes will restore AKP’s absolute majority and allow him to change the constitution. It’s deplorable to the point of absurdity (especially given the recent suicide attack in Ankara) and underscores the extent to which ISIS has now become a catch-all smokescreen that can be cited whenever a government wants to do something that would otherwise come across as insane……………..

……………….The government has no desire to de-escalate here. This is all about
convincing the populace that supporting the Kurds leads to an increased
incidence of terrorist attacks. 

But to be clear, no one believes this anymore. This is just as much
of an international joke as the idea that Washington, Riyadh, and Doha
want to “fight terrorism.”

But bear in mind, the results aren’t in question. That is, as
Barclays suggests, Erdogan is going to simply undermine the coalition
building process on the way to calling for snap elections until he
eventually wins. Sadly, this willing usurpation of the democratic
process will continue until the President eventually gets his way and
the lira will likely collapse until at some point, voters simply give up
on democracy and give Erdogan his majority back.

Additionally, it’s important to note that this election comes just hours before the US intends to deploy spec ops
with Kurdish forces in Syria. As we discussed earlier today, Washington
intends to support those toops with sorties flown from Incirlik. If
Erodgan doesn’t get the outcome he wants on Sunday and he believes the
PKK is responsible, Ankara could begin to re-evaluate its partnership
with Washington…