TURKISH MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS: ...AND THE MAYOR OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 001842

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/26/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS TU
SUBJECT: TURKISH MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS: ...AND THE MAYOR OF
TURKEY IS TAYYIP ERDOGAN

REF: A. ANKARA 1436

B. ANKARA 1833

C. ANKARA 1834

D. ANKARA 1835

E. ANKARA 0348

F. 02 ANKARA 7683


(U) Classified by Polcouns John Kunstadter; reasons: E.O.
12958 1.5 (b,d).



1. (U) Summary: We expect ruling AK Party (AKP) to win big in
Turkey's March 28 mayoral and municipal council elections.
However, victory will weigh heavily on the course of Tayyip
Erdogan's AK Party (AKP) government and on his and his
party's ability (1) to manage popular, pent-up expectations,
both for economic improvement and on social issues such as
the headscarf; (2) to improve decision-making on domestic
policies and political balances, and by extension foreign
policy; and (3) to maintain at a minimum correct relations
with core elements of the Turkish State which remain most
wary of AKP: the Turkish military, judiciary, and presidency.
End summary.



2. (U) This cable lays out conclusions from our pre-election
trips to 15 provinces from Istanbul and the west through the
central Anatolian heartland to the Black Sea and Southeast,
as well as from consultations with other close contacts in
eastern and southeastern Turkey. Septels provide first-hand
impressions and local color.


Predicted Results
--------------



3. (U) It is misleading to focus on the nationwide
percentages when analyzing the results from more than 3200
municipalities of widely varying sizes and types. However,
since both AKP and its opponents will (mis)use the figures as
a proxy for AKP's strength, we include the figures. National
polls have generally put AKP in the 45%-55% range (ref A),
with some apparent manipulation: establishmentarian Tarhan
Erdem's recent poll showing AKP taking Istanbul and Ankara by
wide margins is seen by our AKP contacts as an attempt to
scare anti-AKP voters into voting for main opposition
left-of-center CHP; the forecast of only 45% for AKP in a
poll released May 26 by AKP-linked ANAR appears to be an
attempt to still Kemalist fears of an overwhelming AKP
result. Judging by what AKP officials have hinted to us in
Ankara and the field (supported by our own first-hand
observations),AKP expects somewhere between 50%-52%
nationally, which might translate into 60%-70% of
municipalities.



4. (C) There is speculation in the national press that
Erdogan and his top leadership, wishing to stay slightly
under 50% so as not to provoke greater opposition within the
Turkish State, aim to provoke voters on the left to coalesce
around CHP, thereby preserving a formal opposition. However,
trying to manage the AKP vote downward, while not impossible,
would be extraordinarily hard to keep secret. Moreover,
Erdogan has continued to expend unusual personal and party
energy in countrywide campaigning, including right up to the
end to take Gaziantep from 15-year mayor and CHP icon Celal
Dogan. From its side, CHP is lifeless in virtually all its
campaigns outside selected districts of Istanbul, Ankara, and
Izmir. Perhaps the pollsters and Ankara pundits (e.g.,
leading sociologist Sencer Ayata) who now foresee CHP
rallying from 12% to 18%-22% have a correct sense of
momentum. However, from our on-the-ground observations we
find it difficult to see CHP matching its 19% vote total in
the Nov. 2002 general elections.



5. (C) CHP incumbents with good track records and
common-touch personalities such as Gaziantep's Celal Dogan
have a solid chance of retaining their seats when facing
colorless AKP candidates (see below). The same applies for
energetic incumbents from now-shriveled parties such as
center-right ANAP (e.g., Manisa, Karadeniz Eregli),
left-of-center DSP (e.g., Eskisehir),and
rightist-nationalist MHP in smaller cities (e.g., Mengen,
Beypazari). Mainly Kurdish left-of-center DEHAP looks set to
retain at least some municipalities in the southeast. But
overall AKP is on a roll. Its momentum is broad -- if
lacking the excitement in the period leading up to the Nov.
2002 general elections -- because, while it remains a
conglomerate rather than a coherent party, AKP is having an
impact selling itself as Erdogan, emphasizing its commitment
to service, and drawing on a campaign organization far, far
superior to that of any other civilian entity in Turkey.


The nature of AKP and its campaign
--------------



6. (C) AKP's grassroots party structure is a cross between a
communist party (without the same party-line discipline or
total propaganda machine) and CUBAn block warden system.
Developed by Erdogan in his rise to the mayoralty of greater
Istanbul, it relies on a system of provincial and
sub-provincial chairmen and governing boards overseeing
women's and youth auxiliaries, neighborhood wardens, and
precinct groups including one rep each from the women's and
youth auxiliaries and two more senior party activists.
Extensive computerization of voting stats permits almost
man-to-man marking of voters.



7. (C) As laid out in refs B-D and observed by us in
Istanbul, Ankara, Afyon, and Gaziantep as well, AKP's women's
auxiliaries are full of energetic, enterprising women willing
to put in long hours as volunteer organizers, door-to-door
campaigners or block wardens. Yet four factors combine to
keep women in the background: (1) retrograde attitudes on the
part of AKP's men; (2) women's abiding sense of
responsibility to put their duties as wives and mothers first
(repeated to us in meetings with auxiliaries across the
country); (3) women's diffidence and lack of access to
finances (as noted by leading independent women's activist
Selma Acuner); and (4) rivalries among women (as stated
bluntly by AKP Istanbul M.P. Nimet Cubukcu). In this
context, the exhortations of Tayyip Erdogan and his wife
Emine to find more women candidates rang exceptionally hollow
during the campaign.



8. (C) AKP insiders as diverse as deputy party chairman for
policy Dengir Firat, iconoclast conservative Ankara M.P.
Ersonmez Yarbay, Istanbul Alibeykoy's veteran activists Erhan
Senol and Suat Sar, and Gaziantep's Nizip district party
board member Salih Uygur readily admit that, despite AKP's
formidable grassroots campaign organization, it will take
years to mold the current formation into a coherent,
internally democratic party with a variety of compelling
personalities. Instead, just as at the national level, at
the municipal level AKP is trading on Erdogan as the party
rather than on the identity and capabilities of its
candidates. Even Ankara greater municipality candidate Melih
Gokcek, a character in his own right and a latecomer to AKP,
pays obsequious homage to Erdogan in one of his campaign
posters. In our pre-election travels beyond Ankara we have
almost invariably come across faceless, colorless AKP
candidates in thrall to the provincial party machines, which
remain dominated by veterans of Islamism-colored Milli Gorus.


Ghosts of Islamism Past
--------------



9. (C) We see a difference in focus between Erdogan and the
leadership of AKP's 81 provincial party organizations. A
ruthless pragmatist, Erdogan has moved beyond the secret
lodge (cemaatcilik) approach he grew up with under Milli
Gorus leader Necmettin Erbakan. Erdogan is attempting to
mold a "conservative democratic" party embodied in himself,
modeled after something between the CDU and CSU in Germany,
and reflective of Islamic values, but not -- for now --
Islamist. His solution for controlling the holdover Milli
Gorus types in AKP was to forbid provincial or district party
bosses from running as mayoral candidates. However, he
allowed them substantial say in selection of mayoral
candidates.



10. (C) Thus to a great extent AKP's provincial party
organizations remain dominated by people who in their party
work continue to reflect a Milli Gorus (MG) approach -- and
who with their special handshakes, just-so cut of mustache,
and well-scrubbed, pale, soft faces look the part -- even as
they claim to have changed.



11. (C) Founded by Erbakan more than 30 years ago, fed by
Saudi and, at least previously by Iranian, money, and
continuing to be financed to a great extent by its membership
in western Europe (principally Germany and Belgium),MG is a
classic example of Turkish secret-lodge duality. On the one
hand, MG poses as the true path to an Islamic world. Its
rhetoric is full of nostalgic references to the Caliphate and
supposed tolerance of the Ottoman Empire, droning appeals to
Muslim piety, and the dream of the ummet (the extended
brotherhood of Muslims) in place of the Kemalist Republic.
It bathes in paranoia and anti-American, anti-Christian,
anti-Alevi (heterodox Muslims),conspiracy-laden cliches. It
revels in anti-Zionism (at the same time conveniently
forgetting that, as Prime Minister in 1996-97, Erbakan
approved military cooperation agreements with Israel). It
treats women imperiously. Teacher (Hoca) Erbakan is treated
as the infallible leader of the brotherhood and his
authoritarianism is accepted as righteous.



12. (C) On the other hand, what really drive MG are sheer
material interests, profit-making commercial or political
deals for the boys, appreciation of Oriental cunning, and
utter opportunism. The archetype of hypocrisy, MG and its
actions are far from spiritual, far from the ascetic, Sharia
norms its rhetoric suggests.



13. (C) What has frustrated forward-looking AKPers is the
grip the MG types continue to have on provincial party
matters at the expense of the candidates. Sule Kilicarslan,
a dynamic and ambitious younger woman in the AKP Istanbul
provincial organization, recently expressed to us her sharp
dismay at having been denied the AKP Bahcekoy mayoral
candidacy in Istanbul by the MG network, which chose a
central-casting MG type instead. In response to our comment
that as many as 20 of the 72 AKP mayoral candidates in
greater Istanbul appear to be former MG types (as asserted by
Sule Kilicarslan),Firat expressed relief that the number is
"only 20" and went on wearily to describe his battles with
the MG mentality. Mahmut Kocak, an AKP M.P. from the
heartland province of Afyon whose common touch and
problem-solving approach are rare in the AKP parliamentary
group, railed to us at the retread mayoral candidates the
AKP's Afyon MG mafia had imposed; we followed Kocak on the
campaign trail around Afyon province in mid-March, and with
one exception, a long-time incumbent with a strong local
following, found his complaint on the mark.



14. (C) Beyond the question of how the MG mentality will
affect patronage and decision-making, there is another
negative aspect to AKP's campaign: its choice of allies and
candidates in some areas. Aside from the incomplete vetting
of candidates and choice of characterless candidates beholden
to the provincial machines or to Erdogan himself (Alibeykoy's
Senol and Sar dismiss greater Istanbul candidate Topbas as
"Erdogan's caretaker"),AKP has shown itself ready to ally
with unsavory partners. A retired imam and an Islamist
former confidant of Erdogan in Gaziantep point out that AKP
has allied itself in the local race with a network of two
dozen Turkish (Kurdish) Hizbullah activists in mosques and
has waged an anti-Kurdish, anti-Alevi campaign. We confirmed
the party's anti-Kurdish attitude in Gaziantep from AKP
women's auxiliary activists' comments to us.


Comment
--------------



15. (C) As the embodiment of AKP and Turkey's mayor, Erdogan
faces his most decisive challenges after his expected big
win.



16. (C) First, although the cult of personality among Turkish
party leaders dates from the beginning of the Republic, AKP
has identified itself excessively with its leader. And if
Erdogan stumbles, the party will deflate. In this regard,
Erdogan's arrogance toward ordinary citizens on the campaign
trail has drawn a widely-read warning from leading Islamist
journalist Ahmet Tasgetiren.



17. (C) Second, AKP will own the majority of Turkey's chronic
municipal problems; as the ruling party in Ankara it will
have no excuse if it cannot deliver resources to
AKP-controlled municipalities. Third, a big win at the
municipal level will increase grassroots impatience for
solutions to economic and social problems, e.g.,
legitimization of the Islamic headscarf (turban). Fourth,
patronage appointments are markedly more sensitive at the
local level, where change of status is immediately felt by
the whole community. Packing newly-won municipal
administrations with AKP loyalists, especially those with an
MG past, will provoke profound disquiet. Kemalist daily
"Cumhuriyet"'s defense correspondent Sertac Es, a son of
Anatolia and thus more directly in touch with the heartland
than his elitist colleagues, has alerted us that local
garrison commanders have already begun to receive streams of
angry written complaints on this score from people opposed to
AKP; commanders are forwarding bundles of complaints up the
chain to the TGS.



18. (C) Moreover, the strains from a big win will highlight
question marks over the party (refs E-F). These are (1)
Erdogan's character weaknesses, his choice of weak advisors,
and the quality of his expected post-election cabinet
shuffle; (2) rivals in the party (the widest range of our
political, journalist, and religious contacts warn us FonMin
Abdullah Gul and his supporters such as deputy party chairman
Murat Mercan and foreign policy advisor Ahmet Davutoglu are
much more cunning and hostile Islamists -- in a Saudi sense
-- than Erdogan); (3) thinness of technocratic skill and
inability to manage the resistant State bureaucracy; (4)
corruption; (5) the party's attitude toward equal access for
women in society and politics; and (6) Erdogan's and AKP's
secret-lodge mentality and consequent failure to communicate

SIPDIS
clearly within the party or externally, and indifference to
concerns about AKP's intentions on the part of core
institutions of the State.
EDELMAN