TURKEY: AK PARTY'S LANDSLIDE VICTORY SWEEPS ASIDE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 007921

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/05/2012
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR TU POLITICAL PARTIES
SUBJECT: TURKEY: AK PARTY'S LANDSLIDE VICTORY SWEEPS ASIDE
DISCREDITED PARTY LEADERS


REF: A. ANKARA 7766

B. ANKARA 6880


(U) Classified by Political Counselor John Kunstadter.
Reasons: 1.5(b)(d).



1. (C) Summary: After crushing defeat by AK in Nov. 3
elections, leaders of MHP, ANAP, and DYP, all of which failed
to reenter Parliament, separately declared their intent to
vacate their party chairmanships. With P.M. Ecevit's
pre-election announcement that he will leave DSP leadership
in April 2003, these resignations -- assuming they hold --
mark a significant watershed in Turkish politics. Whether
any of these parties can rebuild into a credible alternative
to AK remains an open question, but to be successful, any
center-right party must represent, and act on, Anatolian
interests. End Summary.


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House-cleaning
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2. (C) In wake of the overwhelming election victory of R.
Tayyip Erdogan's Islam-influenced Justice and Development
(AK) Party (ref A),demoralized leaders of Turkey's
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and center-right Motherland
(ANAP) and True Path (DYP) parties have signaled their
intention to step aside. Even before the Supreme Election
Board (YSK) had finished counting the ballots evening of Nov.
3, right-wing MHP leader Devlet Bahceli publicly accepted
personal responsibility for his party's defeat and announced
that he would not run for the MHP chairmanship at the
extraordinary party congress to be held in early 2003 (ref
A). Nov. 4 Tansu Ciller, whose DYP narrowly missed the 10%
national vote threshold to enter Parliament, issued a written
statement that she would summon a party congress and would
not be a candidate for leader. ANAP leader Mesut Yilmaz
subsequently declared that "in order to clear the path for a
restructuring of the center-right," he will soon quit both
ANAP and active politics. ANAP is expected to hold a
convention in Dec. to pick a new chairman.


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Comment: Cold Weather Coming On
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3. (C) The resignations, unprecedented in Turkish political
history, illustrate the size of the AK victory and its effect
on the current political class, which is beginning to
recognize for the first time the need to renew itself...or at
least to appear to be doing so.



4. (C) Some of the resignees might seek to emulate opposition
leader Deniz Baykal, who resigned his Republican People's
Party (CHP) chairmanship after its disastrous showing in the
1999 elections but left enough of his supporters in key party
positions to ensure his eventual resurrection as party
leader. Whether any could succeed is an open question.
Ciller would face a challenge by former diplomat and
presidential foreign policy advisor Mehmet Ali Bayar, who has
the backing of former President Suleyman Demirel, DYP's
founder. For his part, Bahceli would be confronted with an
angry and hostile party machine that sees him as soft on
existential MHP principles and as an idiosyncratic
personality unsuited for leadership (ref B). For ANAP, the
tasks confronting any pretender to Yilmaz' vacated throne are
even more daunting. A successor must deal expeditiously with
those Yilmaz cronies who undoubtedly will try to stick
around, even as he struggles to salvage an ANAP -- which,
unlike DYP and MHP, appears to have lost its core support to
AK -- on the verge of extinction. Similarly, the Democratic
Left Party (DSP),for decades the personal vehicle of the
Ecevits, is -- like its leader -- heading toward political
oblivion.



5. (C) Bottom line: Turkey remains a predominantly
conservative center-right country with a clear sense of
Muslim identity, however variegated. In short, the voices of
Anatolia, whether in the greater urban sprawl of Istanbul or
the heartland "Green Belt", will insist on being heard. To
flourish in the longer run, therefore, any revived or new
center-right party will, like AK, have to represent Anatolian
realities and aspirations.
PEARSON