Headlines:
- Erdogan Wins Snap Election
- Protests in Iran
- US Supreme Court Upholds Trump Ban
Erdogan Wins Snap Election
The June 24 national elections in Turkey has seen incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan secure another five-year term as president. With his victory, Erdogan can remain president for an additional two terms, until 2028. Erdogan is now in possession of expanded presidential powers. During his time in office, he has engineered constitutional amendments to give him one of the most powerful presidencies in modern Turkish history. Among other things, Erdogan now has the power to rule by decree, appoint Cabinet members, write Turkey’s budget and appoint judges — all without parliamentary approval. Moreover, the opposition cannot mobilize either the necessary 360 legislative votes needed to investigate Erdogan’s presidency or the 400 votes needed to try him in the country’s highest court.
Protests in Iran
Protests have broken out in Iran’s capital, Tehran as the national currency has plummeted. Thousands of traders from the capital’s grand bazar took part in what has been the largest protests since 2012. The clerical regime entered into the nuclear deal with the US in the hopes of reviving the economy after decades of sanctions. It made huge promises that the nuclear deal would generate more economic benefits then they could. But the recent US departure from the nuclear deal has seen the rial plummet from 90,000 rials to the dollar to 43,000. The clerical regime ever since it emerged in 1979 has failed to develop the economy and has now run it into the ground. As the clerical regimes will reach its 40th anniversary in 2019, its position is looking as precarious as ever.
US Supreme Court Upholds Trump Ban
US President Donald Trump has hailed a Supreme Court ruling upholding his travel ban which covers people from several Muslim-majority countries. Lower courts had deemed the ban unconstitutional, but the US top court reversed the decision in a 5-4 conservative majority ruling. At a White House meeting to discuss Mr Trump’s proposed border wall he lauded the decision as “a tremendous success”. The court’s reversal is viewed as a victory for the Trump administration. The ban prohibits most people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen from entering the US. Mr Trump said the Supreme Court decision was a “great victory” for the nation and constitution. “We have to be tough and we have to be safe and we have to be secure,” the Republican president said in Tuesday’s meeting with lawmakers. “The ruling shows that all the attacks from the media and the Democrat politicians were wrong, and they turned out to be very wrong,” he added. He added: “If you look at the European Union, they’re meeting right now to toughen up their immigration policies because they’ve been over-run, they’ve been over-run.”