Turkey will hold parliamentary and presidential elections on June 24 – roughly one and a half years ahead of schedule. Turkish citizens living abroad can already vote at Turkish consulates prior to that date. In Germany, home of the world’s largest diaspora of Turkish origin, roughly 1.4 million Turkish citizens are eligible to cast their…
Former DİTİB secretary general, Bekir Alboğa, has announced his intention to run for a seat in Turkey’s parliament in the upcoming June 2018 elections. Alboğa, who had led DİTİB as Secretary General from 2012 to 2017, is seeking a place on the AKP ballot, the party of Turkish President Erdoğan. The case is particularly salient,…
Sharia law, Islamist democracy, separation of men and women in public transport–all of these are the policies promulgated by Belgium’s Islam Party. The party is hoping to win seats in Belgium’s October municipal elections. Two party members were elected in 2012, including one in the Molenbeek area of Brussels. This year, it will run in…
Germany’s Christian Social Union (CSU), conservative sister party to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has governed its home state of Bavaria since 1946. The only interruption to the party’s rule was a three-year spell by a Social Democrat in the 1950s, by now long forgotten. In particular, the CSU prides itself on having been…
It has been a little over four months that the new Austrian government has been in place. Led by the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) under Chancellor Kurz, a youthful enfant terrible who has given the ÖVP conservatism renewed appeal with a sharp shift to the right, the government also includes the far-right Freedom Party of…
