 He was Prime Minister, then President and over 20 years changed the face of Turkey. He has been accused of concentrating power, jailing opponents and pushing an Islamist agenda. Workers have faced a huge crisis during his rule but it looks like President Recep Tayyip Erdogan still holds the advantage after the first round of elections. Thailand had elections on Sunday too but this time the mandate was for change. What were these dramatic developments in the country? And in April and May, we opened the climbing season in Nepal and Mount Everest will have 900 climbers trying to scale its peak. Despite serious risk to the environment and the climbers, the government has handed out 450 permits this year. We look at all these stories on Daily Debrief today. Turkey's crucial election on Sunday saw a fierce contest, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the right-wing People's Alliance faced a stiff challenge from an umbrella coalition led by Kemal Kilichtarolu. The alliances fiercely attacked each other although there were doubts if their policies were very different. A lot of it boiled down to one man, Erdogan and how he has changed the country. As counting continues, it looks like a runoff might be held. Abdul will join us over video conference to explain what it means to supporters on both sides. Abdul Kang was joining us. Abdul, a sort of tightrope walk for Erdogan in Turkey, what are the latest numbers that we have? Well, as per the data released by the Turkish election council, it says that after counting of around 99.4% of the votes, all votes, Erdogan Hall has got around 49.3% votes and his closest rival, Kemal Kilichtarolu has got around 45% of votes, not exactly 45, less than 45. These are the two leading contenders. Of course, the third, Sinan Oghan has got around 5% of the votes, of course, which does not count, but it will be significant in the second round. As far as the parliamentary election is concerned, there the results are by and large very clear. The leading ruling AKP, Erdogan's party and its alliance has got a clear majority out of 600 seats in the parliament. They have got 321 seats and CHP, the Kilichtarolu's party has increased its seats, but still its alliance altogether gets around 213 seats so far. So it's far behind. The left-lead alliance led by the HTP, the People's Democratic Party, the Kurdish party has got a similar number of seats as it got in the last election around 66. So this is the latest set of numbers, which is emerging from the Turkish justice election. Parliamentary result is almost clear, but as far as the presidential race is concerned, it is still time before we say that this is fine. Erdogan had not one but many problems during his, I mean, he's been around for 20 years and there were no less problems. So what explains this kind of an outcome in that context? What were the issues in this election? Exactly, that is the one strange and surprising element which most of the experts trying to understand the election results will have, will face. If you see the pre-poll surveys, public opinion surveys, they're clearly indicating that Kilichtarolu has a kind of edge over Erdogan's for basic reason that he, Erdogan, has been power for more than 20 years now and there is a strong entainment, the set of voters have moved away from him for the reasons, economic reasons, of course, Turkey has seen a very prolonged high inflation, which is still continuing more than, even now the official inflation rate is above 44, 44%. So that has led to a massive erosion in the purchasing power of the people, the living standards have gone down. So that is considered to be a significant reason that the large number of Turkey people will vote against Erdogan, because that is primarily due to the strange economic policies introduced by his government in the last couple of years. Apart from that, there were other reasons. For example, the presence of the Syrian refugees, around 3.5 million Syrian refugees are there and that has created a kind of right-wing polarization in Turkey, which basically blames the Syrian migrants as one of the reasons for the erosion of their living standards and the loss of jobs and so on and so forth. Whether it is true or not, that is a different issue to debate, but that was one of the major issues in the campaign and that basically forced most of the parties, including Erdogan's party, to take a position on it that these Syrian refugees will be sent back home. But it seems despite that, there has been no much impact on the results. The last major issue was, of course, the issue related to the least mismanagement during the earthquake relief, which happened in February. More than 50,000 Turkish people died in those earthquakes and there was a sense that majority of the people who are affected by the earthquake are going to vote against Erdogan. But if you see the results, the provinces which were highly affected by the earthquake have overwhelmingly voted for Erdogan. More than 60-70% of the votes in those provinces were cast for Erdogan. So all the speculations, all the pre-election analysis which was done on the base of these major issues, it seems have no real impact with the voters who came out in very large number to vote. More than 87% voted on Sunday and it seems they are not as angry with Erdogan and AKP as the pollsters are trying to portray. Abul, before you leave, what was the opposition promising and what would that have meant? Well, the National Alliance, which is basically led by Kehlik, the Rulu and the Left Alliance led by STP had various set of promises. The primary promise which they had during their election campaign was the idea that Erdogan's one individual-centric politics basically dangers Turkish democracy and we go back to the parliamentary system which Turkey had before 2018 elections. So that was the central promise on which Kehlik, the Rulu and his allies was fighting the election apart from relaxation in the inflation and repatriation of Syrian refugees and so on and so forth. The Left was also promising comprehensive reforms in the labor laws, making it more pro-labor, making helping them with better facilities, economic support by the state to kind of help them fight the economic issues they are facing. Kurdish opposition of course was looking for a better protection for minorities and better observation of their rights. All these issues, of course, HDP led alliance has retained its support base of 12 to 12 percent votes and they have got the similar number of seats as in the last elections. But Kehlik, the Rulu's and his alliance's attempt to kind of pitch the election in and around Erdogan's authoritarian politics it seems has not clicked with the voters. Right, Abdul and I'm sure that we'll be discussing this particular election again over the course of this week. Thanks a lot for joining us. Thailand's Prime Minister Prayu Chanuchas United Thai National Party has come up fifth in elections to the lower house as promises of reform moved Thai voters. Meanwhile the move forward party which promised reforms in the monarchy and armed forces has done well. However the question of the next Prime Minister will also be decided by the Senate where the military has a say. Anish from People's Dispatch has the details and he's joining us over video conference now. Anish, let's begin with who are the winners and the losers in this election. Yeah, so quite interestingly the opposition made a massive show of force in terms of the votes that they accumulated between them and also the seats that they won not just in the first past and post constituencies but also in the party list. Now if you look at the history of Thai's electoral behaviours maybe like 2001 the predecessors of Huay Thai which used to be People's Power Party and the Thai Rakhthai which were led by Takshin Srinavathra and his sister Young Lakshinavathra at different points came in second which is the first time that it has happened since 2001 it's quite significant and the move forward party came in first even though you know it's quite a close election in many ways between the two of them. The most significant part is that the right wing the no more conservative the pro-royalist the pro-military parties have you know suffered a beating they are no you know the biggest party is Bhumjethai which has about 71 seats and that is still not even one of the best performances in the last two decades for any of the parties of that inclination. So what we are looking at is very clearly and very resoundingly people calling for more democracy less military interference and maybe maybe some level of reform in how the royalty works so that is how the political behavior is the entire emergence of move forward party in fact is quite significant in multiple ways because they have not only earlier in the earlier election they actually ate up a lot of Huay Thai's probable constituencies this time they also ate up a lot of more conservative constituencies so this emergence has actually toppled a whole lot of traditional political equations of the country. Nishanesh who are the move forward party and what explains the results that they have shown the sort of astounding results? Yeah so the move forward is pretty much the de facto successor of the future forward party that was founded by Thanaton a very young billionaire who tried to claim the prime minister's position in 2019 or after the 2019 election the party had come in second at that point but it emerged out of a multiple set of factors one is the growing involvement or the growing electoral involvement of young urban voters in Thailand and if you look at the current you know seed distribution most of move forward parties seeds come from basically Bangkok and the region around it the Bay region in central Thailand which shows that it's mostly urban constituency and obviously the greater involvement of younger people in the electoral politics not only as voters but also you know as candidates for the move forward party actually gave it a flip in many ways its politics is quite unclear at the moment because when it came out in 2019 as future forward party it had a certain set of policies which were quite progressive in several ways it called for labour reforms there were obviously social movements involved in it at this point it is pretty much taken up the mantle of representing the democracy or the anti-government protest that emerged in 2019 2020 and even we saw it in 2021 and so on so in most of these cases you had several of these activists who were part of the protest movement at the time in and around Bangkok being part of and even winning seeds in with the move forward party so their politics has kind of changed a lot because many of these people do not necessarily share the same vision with several of the social movements many of them are you know quite outward looking or you know globalist in many ways do not view do not subscribe to several of the traditional foreign policy issues that maybe say like Fuwitai or the any of the royalist parties had subscribed to earlier so these their emergence really does upset a lot of not only domestic political equations but also probably if they managed to you know somehow claim the position of the prime minister might change the course of Thai's involvement as a you know regional power in in the short term. Thank you so much for joining us with that update. More than 900 climbers will head up Mount Everest in 2023 authorities in Nepal have handed out more than 450 permits this climbing season climbing windows open in April and May allowing the mountaineers in but it does not mean that the area is accessible on any day over these months windows are open can tightly close for hours days or weeks making the climb equally thrilling and treacherous and the numbers a threat to the environment. That's why many question climbers as well as the generous permits given out to them we'll go over to Siddhant Arnay sports journalist to discuss this season. Siddhant so the climbing season is back and it looks like the Nepal government has decided to give a lot more permits after a rather long gap. What are the problems that people have been pointing out about this sort of mad rush to scale the peak? There's a whole host of problems to help but yeah it's unsurprising for a couple of reasons the volume of permits that have been issued particularly to foreign climbers because it's the 70th anniversary this year of the 10th Norway and Edwin Hilary's first ascent of Everest back in 53 so obviously a lot of people want to be associated with that historical fact in some way or the other and therefore that coupled with the reduction the shortening of the climbing season as well as the reduction in the permits issued during the pandemic means that you know from both the economic perspective of what these climbers bring into Nepal when they come to visit Everest as well as from of course the pressures from the mountaineering community and you know the other aspects of course the livelihoods of the Shepha community that lives in this region is pretty much entirely dependent on the influx of visitors so there's pressure there as well to make sure that you know things continue. So a combination of these factors has I think led to and also I think after a couple of years of quite difficult weather-wise conditions there's hope that you know more people will be able to make it to the top. Of course I'm sure we'll talk a bit more about the issues related to that but it's everything from you know a few years ago a research study was done which found microplastics in both the water as well as the snow from samples collected at Everest. Recent surveys have shown that almost 100% of people who go up to these higher altitude areas mountains etc have now encountered some kind of plastic waste you know either on trails or even sometimes on top. So now from the from Mount Everest which is the highest point to the Mariana change which is the lowest point microplastics are everywhere and this year I think plastic pollution is the theme for World Environment Day you know so a lot of people are talking about the issue of plastic pollution but not enough focus I think as a consequence on the lives and livelihoods of the communities who actually are the backbone of this entire human endeavor to climb the high speed. They provide all the logistical support, all the expertise, they prevent half also sorry not to use the statistical term but they prevent a lot of potential disasters from taking place. One third of all climbers who die on Everest are Sherpas you know and this is actually just dying on Everest it doesn't take into account the kind of physical and other trauma their bodies go through through years of being exposed to what's called the death zone above 20,000 feet above sea level when oxygen levels are so low that your brain is literally getting fried. So not enough attention to that aspect despite the best efforts of the climbing community the fact is that these communities remain quite small and so it's the effort of once in a while breakaways like we will talk about later who become achieve some kind of fame or celebrity status that goes beyond just those that are directly involved in in climbing then they are able to assert other kinds of pressures but as of now it's a difficult balance to be found between maintaining what is a very fragile ecosystem or at least if it is can be called an ecosystem but a fragile part of the world and the very real facts may be coming from years of misgovernance or deliberately done in such a way that means that basically this entire community if this sort of tourism were to stop would find it extremely difficult to earn a decent and have a decent life. Yudhisthiraan then Yudhisthiraan also what strikes me is I think Pasang Gavas has made 26 climbs and he's still I was shocked to learn that he still hasn't broken the record he's he's at a tie now so he has to go 27th time I mean this kind of pressure and it comes with a sense of achievement as well so I suppose that's behind the inability to control and that's also why both the climbers and the government of Nepal often gets you know criticized. Yeah I mean so many things Pragya so the pressure is also from Kami Rita who's the joint holder of the record and who's around will come to take his lot of you know was up later in the season whenever it does probably in the next few days so so when that happens and hopefully of course we always hope for a successful ascent that would be make it 27 so again the record would be broken and so of course there is that that part but I think you know like like many of these climbers who are kind of are doing this regularly one is to remain relevant and to remain be able to tell this always they have to keep climbing right the minute you stop and you retire and you and you go off to your village and you have a peaceful life there you can then your limit your impact on the wider community is limited so like like like these guys have often said that if we had access to proper education if we had you know the kind of other resources that other citizens of Nepal perhaps get those living in Kathmandu and other places then our young people would not be forced into this most dangerous occupation I don't I of course some climbing of this climbing and record breaking is ego-fueled but for for a lot of these people it's also a multitude of other factors including the fact that if you set up a company where you can then employ let's say a hundred kids from the region right all of your clients then who are spending 50 60 70 thousand us dollars to come they want you to personally guide them to the top because one nobody wants to die and two they want to hear your stories they want to tell people that they have been guided by the climber who has climbed Everest the most time right. There's also a personal duty that these Sherpas take on and that's why we've heard so many heroic stories of the kind of rescue attempts they made the kind of rescues they've done which is that once they take on the duty of care towards these clients they have become responsible beyond just the legal responsibility they also kind of assume that responsibility of how you will behave on the mountain how you will interact with it and bringing you back home safe. So it's a combination of all of these factors that I think makes it an extremely interesting story for the rest of us also but one that needs to be addressed from a political point of view very soon as well because otherwise it's unsustainable at this point otherwise and NIMS forget his full name it's called NIMS the climber who recently in a very short time climbed all the 8000 plus peaks and has a documentary that did very well out on Netflix I think 14 weeks so he these kind of people have started talking about these issues so we can only hope that there will be more stories more conversations around it and that's the only possible way that I guess a longer-term solution can be worked at. Great thanks for joining us and that's all we have for today thank you for watching Daily Debrief to come back to us tomorrow and for more such stories visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and also follow us on your social media of choice.