RESIGNATION FROM TURKISH CABINET: WHEN AND HOW

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000911

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/16/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS TU
SUBJECT: RESIGNATION FROM TURKISH CABINET: WHEN AND HOW
WILL A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO PM ERDOGAN APPEAR?


(U) Classified by Ambassador Eric Edelman; reasons: E.O.
12958 1.4 (b,d).


1. (C) Summary: Culture and Tourism Minister Mumcu's
resignation from the AKP cabinet and the party will not split
AKP. Nor is Mumcu or anyone else outside AKP with
aspirations to form a credible political alternative able to
challenge AKP's dominance in the near term. But Mumcu's move
highlights the toll two months of post Dec. 17 drift have
taken on PM Erdogan's leadership. Mumcu's now unbraked
willingness publicly to expose cabinet incompetence will
further encourage more viable centers of opposition to
Erdogan -- core institutions of the Turkish state and his own
FonMin Gul -- to seek further advantage. Erdogan thus has
key decisions to take, and only a short time to do so, if he
is to re-establish sustainable leadership. End summary.


2. (C) Culture and Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu's Feb. 15
resignation from the cabinet and from ruling AKP came as no
surprise. A last-minute adherent to AKP before the Nov. 2002
general elections, Mumcu never bothered to conceal his
impatience with what he saw as the inept way in which AKP
tried to further the more Islamic-oriented elements of its
social agenda, e.g., Islamic headscarves ("turban").


3. (C) At the same time, more assertively pious AKP ministers
and MPs did not conceal their view that Mumcu was an
opportunist, an odd man out with his naked ambition, more
"liberal" approach to Islamic values, and attachment to
Islamist thinker Fethullah Gulen (seen as a rival movement by
those AKP members with roots in the Islamist "Milli Gorus"
movement of one-time PM Necmettin Erbakan). Moreover, while
marital infidelity appears to be so widespread in the cabinet
that even mild-mannered State Minister and Islamic scholar
Mehmet Aydin has been known to make ribald jokes about it to
colleagues, Mumcu's casual approach has been an easy target
for the more hypocritical ones among his former cabinet
colleagues, and he was also among those most rumored as
likely choices to be axed in any cabinet re-shuffle.


4. (C) While the Turkish press has gone into overtime
speculating on the reasons for Mumcu's move, contacts deep
inside or close to AKP (Istanbul MP Huseyin Besli, who writes
many of Erdogan's speeches; "Bilge" think tank chairman Hasan
Osman Celik; and Prime Ministry advisor Aydin Kanat among
others we have talked to) do not see the resignation as
fracturing AKP. Mumcu may take a handful of unhappy AKP MPs
with him. He will appeal to a section of the
center-right/right-of-center electorate as well as to some on
the center-left. Yet his opportunism, ambition and
know-it-all attitude rub too many people the wrong way. The
armed forces have never forgiven him for anti-military
comments he made at the end of the 1990's. He thus faces a
very slippery road ahead.


5. (C) As we assess potential serious challengers to Erdogan,
none of the other conventional names appears to have serious
traction.


6. (C) Left-of-center CHP chairman Baykal is a loser. Baykal
rival Mustafa Sarigul has showed himself to be a corrupt
lout. Baykal's Hamlet-like half-rival Kemal Dervis appeals
only to an elitist set.


7. (C) Center-right DYP chairman Mehmet Agar, whose tenure as
chief of the National Police in the early to mid-1990's is
still connected in people's minds with extrajudicial killings
and other activities of the "deep state", inspires almost no
one. Although right-nationalist MHP appears to have regained
some momentum, it is encumbered by a politically bankrupt
leadership. Union of Chambers (TOBB) chairman Rifat
Hisarciklioglu, seen by some as a stalking horse for
Erdogan's chief internal rival, FonMin Abdullah Gul, has a
war chest estimated at $300 million and a nationwide network
of more than 350 chambers which he can use to promote his
image. However, as appealingly conservative as he appears
across Anatolia, his caution makes any eventual candidacy
problematic, and his position has not improved over several
years despite his clear ambition. Former Istanbul mayor
Bedrettin Dalan is too encumbered by rumors of corruption and
readiness to assert deep connections to the Turkish military
to be an attractive alternative in Anatolia.


8. (C) Our contacts do agree, however, that Mumcu's departure
will encourage the broader opposition to think that the once
seemingly invulnerable Erdogan is now no longer unassailable.
In this regard, two foci of opposition are key.


9. (C) The first are core institutions of the Turkish state,
especially the Presidency, the bureaucracy, and the military
(active-duty, NOT retired). We have seen these institutions
use some "post-post modern" methods to try to check AKP:
presidential vetoes of AKP-drafted laws and personnel
appointments; regular, statesman-like press briefings by the
Turkish General Staff. We are likely to see more use of such
methods, combined with feelers to potential rival politicians
and broader use of a press which, vulnerable to tax audits,
until now has been intimidated by AKP but which will be
emboldened by Mumcu's move and by his willingness to leak
details embarrassing to Erdogan or other members of the
cabinet.


10. (C) The second, more immediately powerful opposition to
Erdogan lies within AKP itself. FonMin Gul and parliamentary
Speaker Bulent Arinc have separately used Erdogan's frequent
absences on foreign trips and his dismissive treatment of
cabinet members and MPs to woo disgruntled MPs and to try to
consolidate their hold on AKP's provincial organizations.


11. (C) For instance, Gul has quietly begun a series of
dinners for MPs, five to ten at a time, to sound them out on
where they would like to see the party go; this is an unusual
activity for a Turkish FonMin to engage in. Gul has taken
more charge of the AKP parliamentary group, which two years
ago he claimed to know only poorly, with only one out of five
party whips (Faruk Celik) now firmly on Erdogan's side. Gul
has also often provoked Erdogan into a harsh escalation of
rhetoric on foreign policy issues (e.g., criticizing Israel
in April 2004 and U.S. Iraq policy end-January/beginning of
February 2005) and then making a U-turn, leaving Erdogan
appearing the intemperate one while he appeals to foreign
leaders as the reasonable one. Contacts such as AKP MP and
Turkey's NATO Parliamentary Assembly chairman Vahit Erdem
have characterized Gul's February 14 interview in center-left
mass circulation "Milliyet", in which he lavishly praised
Secretary Rice and Turkish-U.S. relations in the wake of his

SIPDIS
February 6 meeting and extended one-on-one conversation with
the Secretary, as an attempt to portray himself as more
capable and appealing than Erdogan.


12. (C) Comment: We agree that by itself Mumcu's resignation
will not split AKP. However, his move has attracted
heightened attention for two reasons. First, because it
comes after two months of inaction on Erdogan's and the GOT's
part, inaction which has sparked press commentary from across
the spectrum that Erdogan is an absentee PM and that AKP is
adrift. Outstanding examples of such commentary are Islamist
Ahmet Tasgetiren's February 5 warning to AKP to face up to
its responsibilities in pro-AKP "Yeni Safak" and leftist
Meral Tamer's February 12 column on AKP's disarray and
internal rivalries in "Milliyet". Second, because Mumcu's
timing has revived speculation about the effects on the core
"secularist" structures of the state from Erdogan's
mishandling of the headscarf issue in an ill-considered
interview to "Welt am Sonntag" at the Davos Forum.


13. (C) In this context, the next couple of weeks will
determine whether Erdogan can re-set AKP on a sustainable
course with himself firmly in charge, or whether he continues
on a slow but discernible decline. Key indicators will be
(1) whether he chooses a chief negotiator for the EU
accession process, and whom he chooses; (2) how he fills out
or shuffles his cabinet; (3) whether he decides on reforms to
high regulatory boards and whether these reforms credibly
preserve the boards' autonomy; (4) whether he ensures that
his government signs the new IMF stand-by, which has hung
fire for two months; (5) how he handles relations with the
U.S., especially given Gul's charm offensive; and (5) whether
he gathers a new, more astute team of domestic and foreign
policy advisors. In this latter regard, we understand from
Energy Minister Guler that Erdogan, mindful his current group
of advisors has not served him well and worried by Gul's
attempts to undercut him, has approved his close friend
Guler's preliminary assembly of a team of advisors with deep
experience in the Turkish bureaucracy.


14. (C) If Erdogan is unable to right the ship, we foresee an
extended period of relative drift, with an eventual split in
AKP the most probable way to produce alternatives which would
redefine the Turkish political scene.
EDELMAN