TURKISH POST-ELECTION POLITICS: WHAT IS THE

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 002078 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/09/2019 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS TU SUBJECT: TURKISH POST-ELECTION POLITICS: WHAT IS THE INFLUENCE OF ISLAMIST "MILLI GORUS" ON RULING AKP? REF: A. ANKARA 1842 ¶B. ANKARA 348 ¶C. ANKARA 2074 (U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary: PM Erdogan's reforms in pursuit of Turkey's EU candidacy suggest there is truth in his assertions that he and AKP hew to western concepts of democracy. At the same time, many in AKP and the Turkish "secular" establishment worry that because Erdogan and other AKP founders came out of the Islamist movement Milli Gorus (MG) and MG adherents, though in a minority, are found throughout AKP, the party is vulnerable to control by MG. It appears to us that, as long as Erdogan maintains momentum toward making AKP into a centrist party, MG will remain a drag but not a determinant factor. End summary. ¶2. (C) Has ruling AKP has truly transformed itself into a "conservative democrat" party of the center? Or, given the past of its founders, does AKP remain merely an offshoot of Milli Gorus (National View),the movement of Turkey's guardian of political Islam Necmettin Erbakan? ¶3. (C) AKP's leader Erdogan asserts he has changed, become democratic, embraced the EU and good relations with the U.S. His pragmatism, rhetoric far different from the past, actions on Cyprus and in favor of reform and Turkey's EU candidacy, and personal ambition suggest there is truth to his assertion. FonMin Abdullah Gul has also put great energy into Turkey's EU candidacy and delivered major speeches calling for reform in the Muslim world at OIC conferences in Tehran and Kuala Lumpur. Most of the M.P.s and party provincial chairmen with an MG past whom we maintain contact with also assert they have changed. AKP projects a much more mass-party orientation and its public rhetoric avoids the Islam-drenched vocabulary of Erbakan and his movement. Erbakan in turn scorns Erdogan (but not Gul) with sly condescension, highlighting a deep and personal split. ¶4. (C) Therefore, establishmentarian columnist Sedat Ergin's Feb. 29 assertion (picked up and disseminated further by at least one Washington think-tank) that 80% of AKP's mayoral candidates represented MG, aside from providing no basis for his claim, obscures three essential questions. First, what is MG? Second, how far have MG types in AKP changed? Second, how much influence does MG have over Erdogan and party decisions? -------------- THE NATURE OF MILLI GORUS -------------- ¶5. (C) As summarized in ref (A) MG types wrap themselves in prejudice and Islamist rhetoric, interpreting both Islam and the world in an arid, conspiratorial, anti-democratic way. In this sense, they bear careful watching. However, they are arch-hypocrites and willing to overlook their alleged Islamist principles to make deals beneficial to themselves and their narrow circle. In this sense, their too-clever-by-half duality works against them. Regarding MG's focus on material benefits, one of the basic motives for the break with Erbakan was the frustration on Erdogan's, Gul's, and others' part that Erbakan's inner circle was hoarding the substantial inflow of contributions, especially from MG in Germany (the common estimate we heard several years ago was two million DM a month). -------------- HAS AKP BLEACHED MILLI GORUS? -------------- ¶6. (C) Reflecting the duality within MG, opinions are mixed about how far those in AKP from the MG line have changed. AKP Afyon M.P. Mahmut Kocak, ex-center right DYP and thus by his pragmatic nature opposed to MG, complained to us in bitter frustration about how the MG hold on the AKP Afyon organization led to the choice of a colorless, pliant mayoral candidate and has blocked Kocak's ability to get can-do candidates appointed to key civil service posts in the province. Yet in a later conversation he dismissed claims that MG influence is a danger to AKP's centrist direction since, as he averred, MG types are forced to adapt to Erdogan's more centrist, pragmatic vision whether they like it or not. ¶7. (C) In this vein AKP whip Sadullah Ergin, who comes from the MG line, has long tried to assert to us -- although each time with a classically MG expression of vague and passive acceptance -- that MG types recognize they have to change...and are changing. Yet we recently witnessed him in classic MG mode patronizing three of the leading AKP women M.P.s, who were pointing out to him the need for more women in the party's leadership. ¶8. (C) AKP deputy chairman for policy Dengir Firat, who says he is called an infidel by the outwardly more pious AKP M.P.s, resents what he sees as the continuing dead hand of MG on the party, especially at the provincial level (ref A). AKP Erzurum-Ispir district chairman Osman Cakir was one of several independently-minded, salt-of-the-earth district chairmen in the northeast who told us last autumn they would leave the party if the MG types did not change; Cakir did leave and won the Ispir mayoral election as an independent. ¶9. (C) Views of pious Turks outside the party are split. Renowned calligrapher Ismet Keten, formerly an activist in rightist-nationalist MHP and with extensive contacts among various religious brotherhoods, dismisses MG as a corrupt, spent force. On the other hand, Bedreddin Habiboglu, son of a famous Islamic theologian and himself an expert on Islam, asserts MG types are indelibly tainted by their collectivist (secret lodge) approach to Islam and will never be able to think for themselves. Likewise, an upper-mid-level police intelligence official stationed in central Anatolia tells us that in his experience MG types throughout the heart of Anatolia are only pretending to change. When they think they are among friends they still speak of the U.S. as their main enemy and acknowledge their change is only a facade. ¶10. (S) Other long-time Embassy contacts also voice mixed assessments. Leading national security analyst Faruk Demir, whom we have seen recently drafting a series of eyes-only security and foreign policy analyses hand-delivered to Erdogan, points out that Erdogan has never explained how he has changed or developed. Demir, who had a religious education including graduation from a preacher (imam-hatip) high school, is also uneasy with Erdogan's bristling rejection of a connection between Islam and terrorism. ¶11. (S) But Demir concurs with long-time Erdogan confidant Mustafa Birbilen (aka Bilginer),who sees Erdogan as having distanced himself from MG for several reasons (ref B). Both Demir and Birbilen agree with the widespread assessment in AKP and among other who follow the party closely (e.g., Bedreddin Habiboglu, Islam-oriented "Yeni Safak"'s diplomatic correspondent Duygu Guvenc, Islam-oriented "Zaman" columnist and sociologist Nevval Sevindi) that, underneath his reasonable exterior, FonMin Gul remains much closer to MG ideological precepts than Erdogan. -------------- THE MILLI GORUS IMPACT ON AKP -------------- ¶12. (C) On core foreign policy questions such as EU candidacy or continued close adherence to NATO, MG has had no discernible influence. Likewise on Cyprus, although "Yeni Safak"'s Duygu Guvenc avers that at times FonMin Gul's approach -- e.g., his openly friendly overtures to Rauf Denktash just before the February meetings at which the parties agreed to re-open negotiations -- suggests that, while he supports a settlement, he's trying to carve out a margin for maneuver from Erdogan's forthright line. On "Eurasia" and policy toward Syria and Iran, Gul's and foreign policy advisor Ahmet Davutoglu's approach contains Islamist tones, although to call the approach MG would be to miss nuances. ¶13. (C) Some appointees in national-level positions, e.g., Prime Ministry Undersecretary Omer Dincer, have clear Islamist tendencies; in the words of one contact, "to say that Dincer is not MG is to assume a heavy responsibility." Given the wide assortment of advisors around Erdogan, it does not appear that Dincer has undue influence at present. Samsun M.P. Musa Uzunkaya, a former mufti (civil servant supervisor of mosques and imams) and a founder of AKP, was one of the first MG types to join Erdogan as he split from Erbakan, and appears to be one of Erdogan's main channels for controlling the MG fraction of perhaps 40 M.P.s (15 hard-core) in AKP's parliamentary group. In our experience Uzunkaya retains the classic MG physical appearance and mannerisms but is shrewd enough to sense that he must adapt to keep up with Erdogan's move toward the center. ¶14. (C) From our own observation and by admission of scores of AKP M.P.s and local party officials we have talked to across the country, MG types remain in control of many of AKP's provincial organizations. Kemal Kaya, legislative assistant to liberal-conservative NATO parliamentary group chairman (and former ANAPer) Vahit Erdem, confirmed to us Erdem's discomfort at MG's influence in the selection of mayoral candidates for the March 28 local elections. Several contacts in or close to AKP acknowledged to us that Gul adamantly opposed Erdogan's choice of incumbent Melih Gokcek, a latecomer to AKP and too independent, nationalist, and ambitious for MG tastes, as AKP's mayoral candidate for metropolitan Ankara. Telling us infighting between MG types and the AKP mainstream is now fiercer than AKP's competition with other parties, liberal-conservative AKP deputy chairman for foreign affairs Saban Disli averred that MG is powerful but not so powerful as some media reports indicate. Erdogan will now seek to lop off MG extremists, Disli asserted. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶15. (C) In our view, MG types in AKP are in a minority. They are a drag but not a fully operational brake on AKP's consolidation and transformation into a centrist party. They will remain under pressure to adapt to the extent that momentum to move AKP toward the center remains with Erdogan, who has moved substantially away from the full-blown MG environment of his youth and his work in MG founder Erbakan's parties. ¶16. (C) But in the context of the challenges facing Erdogan outlined in reftels, open questions remain. First, how the Erdogan-Gul dynamic will play out in terms of appointments. Second, how Erdogan will be able to keep Gul in line on foreign policy ("Aksam" Ankara bureau chief Nuray Basaran, who has the best access to Erdogan of all correspondents we know, tells us Erdogan has heard that Gul is disparaging him to foreign interlocutors). Third, how Erdogan will have the time and energy to clean MG's influence out of the provincial organizations. EDELMAN