MR. ERDOGAN LEARNED NOTHING FROM MADRID 2004:

[E]rdogan called the new ballot because Turkish voters in June declined to give his mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, the legislative supermajority required to realize Erdogan's dream of re-making government on lines that would make him even more powerful. In fact, for the first time in 13 years, AKP failed to achieve even a simple majority, leaving it searching in vain for a partner with which to form a coalition government.

But in calling the new election, Erdogan also set out to change the playing field--chiefly by undermining the surging reformist party that had chipped away at AKP's base: the Peoples' Democratic Party, known as HDP, was a favorite of both the country's large ethnic Kurdish population and liberal reformers intent on checking Erdogan's authoritarian impulses. The Oct. 10 bombing targeted an HDP rally. The next day thousands of mourners chanted "Murderer Erdogan" and "Murderer State." Police responded with tear gas.

"We won't seek revenge," Selahattin Demirtas, the former human rights activist who heads the HDP told a crowd from atop followers from atop a bus. "Violence will breed more violence. We'll seek justice in the election on Nov. 1. Shared life is possible among the oppressed and the abused. We will not surrender to a bunch of scoundrels."

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