TURKISH POST-ELECTION POLITICS: ASSESSING RULING

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 002074

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/09/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS TU
SUBJECT: TURKISH POST-ELECTION POLITICS: ASSESSING RULING
AKP'S MOMENTUM AS A BROAD-BASED PARTY


REF: A. ANKARA 2026

B. ANKARA 1905

C. ANKARA 1847

D. ANKARA 1842


(U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: 1.4
(b,d).



1. (C) Summary: With electoral victory in his pocket, PM
Erdogan faces the immediate challenge of getting a Cyprus
settlement but remains outwardly confident that his
strategies of becoming Turkey's "single man" and capturing
the center and center-right are working. A preliminary
analysis of electoral results bears him out. However, major
challenges lie in his way. End summary.



2. (C) In the wake of his AK Party's (AKP) big win in March
28 nationwide local elections, PM Erdogan faces the toughest
political challenge of his 13-month tenure -- one with
immediate ramifications for the strength of his prime
ministership and leadership of the party. This is the
challenge of selling the draft Cyprus settlement domestically
and in northern Cyprus, especially in light of the calibrated
ambiguity displayed by the Turkish military (ref A).



3. (C) Erdogan is nevertheless projecting broad
self-confidence. Spending the majority of his time abroad
since AKP's local-election victory, and departing on an
official visit to Japan April 10, he is leaving his party to
wait and watch for his guidance on how to sort out the
consequences of its victory (refs B,C) and to speculate on
how extensive his long-rumored cabinet shuffle will be. This
approach of keeping his party waiting and guessing is a
classic feature of Erdogan's leadership style. Likewise,
Erdogan prefers to broadcast an image of one who has as much
time and political momentum as he needs to take decisions.


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ELECTORAL VICTORY SEEMS SOUND
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4. (C) Regarding Erdogan's approach, he appears to be drawing
strength from the following statistics, which indicate his
strategies of becoming Turkey's "single man at the top" (tek
adam) and capturing the lion's share of center and
center-right votes remain effective:


--AKP's share of eligible voters jumped from 26.4% in 2002
general elections to 31.7% in March 28 local council
elections, the best proxy for a national vote.


--AKP votes were almost entirely votes for Erdogan, thus
cementing his position and self-image as Turkey's uncontested
political leader and tribune of the people.


--AKP made significant inroads in southeastern Turkey, which
for 13 years had voted solidly for a series of Kurdish
parties, winning mayoralties in four provincial capitals.


--In some areas (e.g., Sivas center and three small
municipalities in Samandagi district of Hatay),AKP, which
has heretofore not reached out strongly to Alevi (heterodox
Muslim) communities, won Alevi support.


--AKP won votes from across a far broader segment of society
than that represented by the professedly political-Islamist
Milli Gorus (National View) line.


--With the continued decay of left-of-center CHP and despite
the slight revival of rightist-nationalist MHP and
center-right DYP, AKP faces no credible civilian political
alternative for the foreseeable future.


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WHAT LIES BEHIND THE ELECTORAL VICTORY STATISTICS
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5. (C) Our contacts in AKP acknowledge that, as "mayor of
Turkey" (ref D),Erdogan faces party and domestic issues
stemming from his local-election victory which will
constantly test his leadership. We have already highlighted
some of those issues (ref D); others stem from the nature of
his victory.


Center and center-right votes



6. (C) To understand how well AKP has been able to claim the
center and center-right we will need to see analyses of
voting shifts at the precinct level in key districts. Until
then, we can make the following observations. First, AKP did
attract some center/center-right votes that would have gone
to ANAP or DYP if the latter parties had any juice. However,
the shift appears less pronounced than AKP had targeted. One
TV journalist close to AKP averred to us that the featureless
quality of most AKP mayoral candidates (we have not met a
single observer of any stripe who thinks AKP fielded
impressive candidates) contributed to the lower than expected
AKP percentage on a nation-wide basis.
Women's votes



7. (C) That only 0.4% of mayoral and council candidates were
women did not dim the enthusiasm of AKP women's branch
volunteers in our observations in urban sprawls and
provincial centers and smaller towns across Anatolia. AKP
appears to have a solid grip on the votes of more
conservative women. However, key to understanding how well
AKP attracted women in the center or center-right will be to
use detailed precinct analysis to gauge the extent of a shift
among women who do not cover their heads (note: uncovered
women are a minority among Turkish women, although it is
important to understand that the majority of covered women
wear headscarves in a traditional style similar to what one
would see in the Slavic world or even rural Britain. End
note).


Kurdish votes



8. (C) Two of the most experienced Kurdish politicians in
Turkey, Hasim Hasimi and Serafettin Elci, have each told us
Kurds in the southeast voted in significant numbers for AKP
because (a) AKP appealed to the generally more conservative,
pious nature of the population in the region (in agreeing on
this point, Hasimi, the brother of a prominent Naksibendi
sheykh, emphasized sheykhs' role in rallying votes for AKP,
while Elci discounted their influence); (b) voters thought
that, with AKP as the ruling party in Turkey, it will deliver
on the commitments its local candidates made; (c) the
performance of many of mainly-Kurdish DEHAP's mayors was
disappointing and DEHAP's left-of-center election coalition
partner SHP was seen as an arm of the statist policies which
brought repression during the war against the PKK. However,
pointing to AKP's lack of a coherent program for the
southeast, both Hasimi and Elci averred that AKP will fail to
meet expectations in the southeast, much less deliver a
comprehensive solution for the "Kurdish problem".



9. (C) At the same time, in some other regions AKP appeared
to wage campaigns which at best were cool toward Kurds as a
group. Consulate Adana reports that AKP lost a hard-fought
campaign in Mersin because it did not appeal to the
significant minority of the city's population which consists
of poor, more recently arrived Kurdish migrants. We also saw
evidence of this approach in Gaziantep, where activists in
AKP's women's branch acknowledged the paucity of Kurds (who
through migration now make up a significant portion of the
metropolitan Gaziantep population) in the branch's leadership
and openly and repeatedly emphasized to us their preference
for the 18% of the city which is "original Ganziantepers".



10. (C) In the end, Gaziantep went more strongly for AKP than
even the party had anticipated. Aside from voters wanting a
change and expecting to benefit from having a mayor from the
same party as the one in power, our contacts have given us
three reasons why some Kurds there voted AKP. First, former
mayor and defeated CHP candidate Celal Dogan neglected to pay
attention to the piety of the average voter. Second, they
may have been enticed by reported massive handouts to voters.
The figures we have heard strike us as outlandish, but we
include them because it was clear AKP -- which sent half the
cabinet to campaign there -- was ready to do anything to win:
Dogan made the unsubstantiated charge in the press that AKP
distributed 20 trillion TL ($15 million); a member of Dogan's
campaign team told us the figure was 17 trillion TL, provided
by Gaziantep's most prominent business family, the
Konukoglus, who imposed their man as AKP's mayoral candidate,
and two other families.



11. (C) Third, two Gaziantep sources, both of whom are pious
and deeply linked to the Kurdish and Zaza communities, told
us AKP, through its provincial chairman Okkes Eruslu, made an
alliance with the Gaziantep branch of Turkish (i.e., Kurdish)
Hizbollah, which controls some two dozen mosques in the
metropolitan area. Hasimi told us AKP and Hizbollah made
electoral alliances in Bingol and Diyarbakir as well and he
recalled AKP Diyarbakir M.P. Ihsan Arslan's links with
Hizbollah in the past.


Alevi vote



12. (C) We await precinct voting pattern analyses to be able
to make a general statement on voting trends among Alevi
communities. In the past, Alevi communities, wary of the
majority Sunnis from bitter historical experience and aware
of AKP's predecessor parties' intolerance, have voted heavily
for CHP or other parties on the left, i.e., parties
representing the "secular" Kemalist state. From a
preliminary review of the March 28 election results it
appears that CHP held on to solidly Alevi districts.



13. (C) However, AKP garnered Alevi votes in at least a few
areas, e.g., Sivas city and a small section of Hatay,
apparently as a result of the desire for change from
long-term incumbents and prospect of a better flow of
infrastructure funds from the AKP national government.
Sadullah Ergin, an AKP deputy group chairman (whip) from
Hatay, proudly told us that three Alevi municipalities in
Hatay's traditionally-CHP Samandagi district went to AKP.
However, an upper-mid-level officer of the national police
(TNP),who visited the area in February, explained the
voters' motivation in terms similar to those used by our
Kurdish interlocutors: the municipalities in question are
small and poor, starving for money for basic infrastructure
projects, and desperately full of expectations that AKP will
deliver.


Influence of Milli Gorus (MG)



14. (C) Ref (D) outlines the troubling aspects and the
hypocrisy of political-Islamist MG, some of whose adherents
abandoned MG founder Necmettin Erbakan to found AKP. Given
some exaggerated claims of MG influence on AKP, we treat the
MG question at greater length septel.


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COMMENT
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15. (C) In AKP's 17 months in power the man in the street has
not yet seen tangible benefits in terms of a pickup in
employment or more money in his pocket. Yet Erdogan remains
winningly popular and Anatolia remains patient in the face of
Erdogan's claim that he needs three years from Nov. 2002 to
show results. We expect the patience to hold at least
through 2004 among those who voted for AKP. No credible
political alternative is visible (AKP's biggest rival at the
moment is itself, i.e., its factions).



16. (C) At the same time, many factors will test Erdogan's
ability to anchor AKP as the broad party of the center and
center-right and to keep various party and
parliamentary-group factions in line. Aside from the
challenge of running the majority of Turkish municipalities
or unforeseeable political or economic shocks, such factors
include Cyprus, continuing wariness toward AKP on the part of
core State institutions, the November two-year anniversary of
the general elections (when M.P.s become eligible for
pensions and thus less worried about changing parties),EU's
December decision whether to give Turkey a start date for
negotiations, and the extent to which corruption besmirches
AKP's image.
EDELMAN