Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 466 posts

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#311

Post by kavalg »

tlogan wrote: post #236

There’s a noticeable inconsistency in how Hacker News community reacts to electoral controversies in Romania and Turkey. In Romania, the Constitutional Court disqualified candidate Călin Georgescu based on unproven allegations that he was influenced by Russia. In Turkey, opposition leader and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was barred from running after his university degree was annulled under dubious circumstances. Bo…

> Does this reveal an inherent tribalism in our thinking?

Yes, it does. We are humans too, not some upper cast of society that is permanently immune to prejudice, emotions and media influence reinforcing the former two. Unfortunately, it is not only Romania that is straying away from democracy. Bulgaria, another EU member state, and by coincidence (or not) a neighbor to Romania, has also been degrading significantly in this regard. To quote a couple of examples:

- A referendum on the topic of delaying Bulgaria's entry into the Euro zone (replacing national currency with EUR) was not allowed to take place by the parliament and subsequently the constitutional court (with really hard to understand and controversial argumentation).

- There were lots of violations during the last elections that were investigated selectively and following a questionable and non-transparent process

- Protesters being detained for a month for throwing eggs on a building - a highly disproportional measure, given the severity of the violation.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#312

Post by jajko »

benterix wrote: post #309
throwaway3485t8 wrote: post #35

To add insult to injury, it could be the case that Erdogan's degree is fake [1] (I don't know of a single Turkish person NOT voting for him that thinks that his degree is authentic) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recep_Tayyip_Erdo%C4%9Fan_univ...

No surprise, these folks always accuse others of what they themselves. My pet peeve theory is because they're not great thinkers and they just use what they know best.

Just like russia using ukraine neonazis as one of pretexts of the war, while sporting much larger (and government+orthodox church-controlled) population of such themselves.

Using such arguments shows how critically thinking (and actually free) population given state has. They wouldnt use it if they would be scolded and mocked from majority.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#313

Post by jajko »

csomar wrote: post #167
eru wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course, those same conservative politicians then do the exact same shenanigans of corruption, power politics, and authoritarianism, and so the cycle continues. The curious things was that early in Erdogan's reign, that is during the 2000s, Turkey seemed to be genuinely making progress, especially in terms of economic policy and outcomes. That's when he was still making fairly orthodox reforms more or less along…

To be fair, he is still doing the infrastructure build up. I think the only difference is that he has moved from the liberal agenda; but he only followed that agenda to have a shot at the EU membership. Once that became not a viable option, he obviously regressed on that. I don't think keeping the same policies as the 2000s would have avoided the hyper-inflation spirals though it might have marginally helped. Turkey…

Capital city bubble is present in some form in every single country, not sure whats the argument with that. Thats basic open economy

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#314

Post by Hackbraten »

ginko wrote: post #10

Wasn't aware that a university degree is a requirement to run for president in Turkey. I'm not aware of any other country that does that. edit: Wikipedia actually has a list[1]. Did you know you need to have a bank account to be eligible to become president of France? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidential_qualifica...

> Did you know you need to have a bank account to be eligible to become president of France?

In combination with Europe’s PSD2 directive [0], that effectively means you need to have a Google or Apple account to become President of France.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Services_Directive

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#315

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

simion314 wrote: post #259
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #196

These tactics are often criticized selectively. Why is it a problem when Turkey manipulates elections by banning certain candidates or parties, but not a problem when Romania or Germany or the EU does it? When any country resorts to such authoritarian tactics, it needs to be condemned. Otherwise criticism of people like Erdogan falls flat.

Don't comment about Romania if you are not correctly informed. For Turkey I will wait for judges to decide if what happened was legal.

I am very informed. It’s clear that the Romanian courts succumbed to pressure from the EU, as confirmed by an EU commissioner. The courts fabricated a justification that is weak in order to get the result they wanted. It’s why they slowly stepped from a recount to cancelling the election to banning candidates.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#316

Post by jajko »

bamboozled wrote: post #307
pstuart wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, yes. I'm not sure what it will take to make people realize that a "strong man" is not the answer.

I doubt, but wonder if it's a generational thing, like would the twenty somethings be into strongmen when they're the majority of voters? I used to think the younger generation were a bit different but I've seen them pretty much obsess over MAGA, Joe Rogan et al. So more of the same I guess?

Human nature goes deep and doesnt change much across generations

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#317

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

simion314 wrote: post #261
tlogan wrote: post #236

There’s a noticeable inconsistency in how Hacker News community reacts to electoral controversies in Romania and Turkey. In Romania, the Constitutional Court disqualified candidate Călin Georgescu based on unproven allegations that he was influenced by Russia. In Turkey, opposition leader and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was barred from running after his university degree was annulled under dubious circumstances. Bo…

In Romania you had the constitution and constitutional court involved. The sentiment in Romania is that we do not want a Russian puppet as president, this seems to differ in USA. But let me inform you that MAGAs and president Elon did not like what the constitutional court decided (if only they knew the guy they supported is a conspirationist that thinks Trump is a joke and faked his shooting in the ear and 911 was a…

> The sentiment in Romania is that we do not want a Russian puppet as president, this seems to differ in USA.

The “constitutional court” is a joke. They made a decision under pressure form the EU. They made a completely unprincipled decision to deny the people of Romania their right to vote. They realized at the last minute that a redo of the election would result in the same outcome according to polls, which is why they kept making up new excuses and ended up banning the candidate. This is obviously a situation where the outcome is artificially manipulated and there’s no real democracy left there. It’s too bad because for about 10-15 years, it really looked like Romania was headed in the right direction, towards democracy and freedom and away from its past.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#318

Post by arcticbull »

dylan604 wrote: post #227
Quarrel wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having someone born in the country they are looking to lead seems silly to you? Whether it is silly or not, I'm not sure, but it certainly doesn't seem very democratic. IMO Arnold Schwarzenegger, to pick a random foreign born politician, should be able to stand for President. People can choose not to vote for him if they've bothered by him being foreign born. FWIW, in Australia, no member of Federal Parliament (so…

> would need to renounce their foreign citizenship before standing for election I'm really glad we all live in a world where nobody lies to gain position, or no foreign enemy has ever tried to infiltrate their operatives into key positions by becoming double agents and renouncing anything

Natural birth is not a defense against that.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#319

Post by csomar »

eru wrote: post #274
csomar wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, he is still doing the infrastructure build up. I think the only difference is that he has moved from the liberal agenda; but he only followed that agenda to have a shot at the EU membership. Once that became not a viable option, he obviously regressed on that. I don't think keeping the same policies as the 2000s would have avoided the hyper-inflation spirals though it might have marginally helped. Turkey…

What do you mean by 'rent economy'? Tourism is a pretty good sector for the economy, especially because by its very nature you have to compete internationally with the rest (and best) of the world. There's no shelter behind tariffs or similar.

Tourism in Turkey is essentially one dude owning the land/establishment and 10 dudes running around serving tourists. Nothing wrong with that if that's a small part of your economy but if you have most of your people doing that, then it's definitively a mismanagement of your country talent.

Re: Turkish university annuls Erdogan rival's degree, preventing run for president

#320

Post by n4r9 »

dylan604 wrote: post #175
BrandoElFollito wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me "botn in the country" or "born a citizen of the country" does not mean much. This is like assuming that your birth status makes the person. Think minarchy, castes, ... You can be a naturalized citizen in live with your country, or a born citizen plain stupid and with worst interests in mind.

Born in the country lessens the likelihood that you are beholden to more than one master. Born in another country then naturalized still does not rule out sleeper agent situations. Seems pretty obvious to me. I'm one that questions the whole pledge of allegiance forced to be recited by children that have no wherewithal to understand what allegiance even means or the ramifications of that pledge. Yet, I'm okay with bo…

The UK's recent prime minister Boris Johnson was born in the US two British parents who happened to be studying in Manhatten at the time. They all moved back here a few months later. The idea that he could be some sort of US sleeper agent is hilarious, though.
Post reply on HN