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. -------------- ELECTORAL VICTORY SEEMS SOUND -------------- ¶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. -------------- -------------- WHAT LIES BEHIND THE ELECTORAL VICTORY STATISTICS -------------- -------------- ¶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. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶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