Reuters World News - A runoff in Turkey and Thai voters rout the military

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Elections in Thailand and Turkey see challengers take on the established ruling parties. A runoff in Turkey could see President Erdogan head for his third decade in power. And in Thailand, a stunning rout of army-backed parties by an opposition coalition - but will the military let them take power? Plus, the comeback project for the iconic Australian platypus. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt-out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, two elections pit opposition challenges against once secure parties. But the way forward is unclear. Turkey is headed for a runoff vote, up to President Taiyip Erdogan led a hotly contested election to extend his strongman rule. And in Thailand, will the military allow the country's former youth protesters to palay their election victory into government office? In any other country, this kind of victory would be. be a slam dunk and they would form the government. But this is Thailand and anything can happen.

Plus, the return of the platypus to Australia's oldest national park. It's Monday, May 15th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes. I'm Kim Vinal in London. We start in Turkey and a rally outside President Tai up Erdogan's party headquarters in Ankara. The Turkish leader has two more weeks to persuade voters that he should extend his rule into a third decade. Erdogan defied pre-election polls to lead in Sunday's race against challenger Kemal Kiliq Daul.

Here's Erdogan's party spokesman Omar Chelek announcing he was ahead after initial tallies. But Erdogan failed to succeed. secure more than 50% of the vote, meaning it now goes to a runoff on May 28th. The political cliffhanger reflects deep polarization in Turkey of the country's future. For a deep dive into some of the issues deciding the election, take a listen to our special episode podcast from the weekend. And those elections are hanging over markets today. Here's Carmel Crimmons to explain.

Carmel, how are the markets reacting? The markets aren't taking this way. There's a lot of disappointment here. The hope was that if Erdogan's time and office ended, that it would also bring to an end his kind of unorthodox economic policy. Erdogan hates high interest rates. He's kept interest rates very low and that has really fueled inflation. So you're seeing the lira down this morning. It's down at a two-month low.

You're seeing stocks and bonds are also off and the cost of insuring against a sovereign default has risen. So bad news for the markets this morning. Anything else we should be keeping an eye out for this week? Yeah, politics actually generally is hanging over the markets. And, you know, we're back to that old chestnut of the debt ceiling. So talks between Biden and congressional leaders are set to resume on Tuesday. They were postponed on Friday. So we'll have to see what happens there.

As I say, it's hanging over the kind of the wider macro picture. Cyclone Mocker rips away roofs and destroys a communications tower in Myanmar. 400,000 people were evacuated in Myanmar and neighbouring Bangladesh ahead of landfall. There's been a 50% drop in the number of migrants crossing the border, that's according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The pandemic-era immigration policy, known as Title 42, expired at midnight. It's been replaced by an arguably tougher immigration policy. Ukrainian President Volodymer Zelensky meets with British Prime.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today, the later stop-off in a whirlwind tour of European capitals. Zelensky visited leaders in Berlin, Rome and Paris over the weekend to drum up further military and financial support for Ukraine. Leaders of the Group of Seven Nations plan to tighten sanctions on Russia at a summit this week in Japan. The new measures are designed to undermine Russia's future energy production and curb trade that supports its military. Now it's not just Turkey, Thailand has also been to the polls this weekend. And voters there have sent a clear message. They want to end nearly a decade of military rule.

Two pro-democracy parties, the Youth-oriented Move Forward Party, and the populist Putai Party have scored a resounding victory. But will they actually be able to take office? Reuters Southeast Asia Bureau Chief Kay Johnson unpacks it all for us. First, Kay, tell us about Move Forward. They have links to the student protesters from three years ago, right? The rise of this youth-oriented Move Forward Party has been one of the big surprises of this election. The youth protests in 2020 were really groundbreaking because for the first time,

they questioned laws that make it illegal to criticize the King. And this New Forward Party has actually put that on their political platform. And that's quite groundbreaking. They don't want to abolish the monarchy. They say they're loyal to the monarchy. But what they are saying is the military has used the monarchy as kind of a blanket around them to justify their seizures of power. And that's what they say they want to end. Some people that I've talked to have said that this is almost an earthquake in Thai society.

It shows almost a generational shift in how Thai people are thinking. The question is, is the military and is the political system they put in place going to be allowed to let the will of the people speak and take power? How could the military block them? There's a 250 seat appointed Senate that was appointed by the last military junta that has a vote in who becomes an ex-prime minister. And so even though these two parties alone and they have some other small, parties that are allies that will be in the lower house, the elected house, they would have to have 75% of these elected seats to overcome this appointed Senate and to be able to choose their prime minister. And that's a really, really high bar. And there's another party who could be

crucial? One of the most important parties is this Bunjai Tai party, which is run by the current House Minister. He's most noteworthy to the outside world as the man who championed the legalization of marijuana, which happened last year in Thailand. His party is now in third place and everybody will be watching after this to see if he will switch loyalties and go with the two winners of this election. Now, what has webbed feet, a furry body and venomous spurs? Do not say your ex. It is, of course, The platypus. The species unique to Australia has been reintroduced

into the country's oldest national park and a landmark conservation project. James Redmayne was there for us. The release of the platypus was after quite a complex operation. These platypuses were collected across South Eastern New South Wales over the past few weeks, that they've been chosen because of their condition and good health. And on the day of the release,

One platypus was released at a time. It was quite a serene scene. Everyone was quite silent to see these platypuses emerge from their little white pillow slips and find their way down the banks of the Hacking River into the water. It's not often you see plattipuses in the daylight swimming around. There was an excitement in the air because a lot of people really want to see the platypus do well. They've been struggling over the years in terms of we've had the bushfires, the floods, and of course the droughts, which have been accentuated by climate change.

Habitatus destruction, river degradation. Platypus is quite hard to find in the wild. So they hold quite a unique place in Australian folklore, but also culture, because it's such a unique special animal that everyone likes to get behind. The platypus seems like a made-up animal, but under all that level of weirdness, it's incredibly cute. It's quite small. It sort of just rumbles into the water.

You can see it's duck like bill and its webbed feet making its way through. Fortunately for us, these were just females that were released today. So females do not have the venomous spurs. Only the males have the venous spurs. Dr. Gilad Bino, who's from UNSW's Center for Ecosystem Science, led these expeditions. On a personal level, I feel very responsible for these platypuses that were relocating to a home and so I'm hopeful and optimistic that they'll be able to establish a new population that would be thriving in the Royal National Park for everyone to enjoy.

All platypuses will be tagged and monitored for years to come to see where they travel to, how they're succeeding and how are they breeding. That's it for this edition of Reuters World News. We'll be back tomorrow. To get all our shows in your podcast feed, make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platform or download the Reuters app.