TURKEY: TRABZON UP FOR GRABS IN NATIONWIDE LOCAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 001828 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2018 TAGS: PGOV ECON ETRD EIND SOCI TU SUBJECT: TURKEY: TRABZON UP FOR GRABS IN NATIONWIDE LOCAL ELECTIONS REF: 07 ANKARA 1860 Classified By: POL Counselor Daniel O'Grady, reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY AND COMMENT. Politics are personal and party affiliation counts for little in Turkey's Black Sea port of Trabzon. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is hoping to win Trabzon -- one of the very few large municipalities outside of its control -- in the March 2009 local elections. But AKP is unlikely to oust the popular leftist-nationalist Republican Peoples' Party (CHP) mayor unless it can present a candidate with genuine personal appeal to local citizens, and it does not seem to have found one yet. AKP is nonetheless confident. It has the best political organization in town and the national government has resources at its disposal to try to sway Trabzon voters on the issues closest to their hearts and wallets: Trabzonspor soccer, agricultural support, infrastructure projects and jobs. Failing that, AKP reportedly is developing a proposal to designate Trabzon a "metropolitan city," creating a supra-municipality that would incorporate poorer, more conservative outlying areas of Trabzon, bolstering AKP support and diminishing the influence of secular-minded, CHP-leaning center-city voters. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT. ¶2. (SBU) We visited Trabzon October 7 to take the pulse of local political, NGO, and business leaders ahead of the March 29, 2009 Turkish municipal elections. We followed up our visit by meeting with two Trabzon parliamentary Deputies, one CHP and one AKP (and a former pro-Islamic Saadet Party Mayor). The national government is looking to local elections as an opportunity to renew its momentum, much of which was lost during the divisive and protracted disputes over headscarf reform and party closure. Winning in Trabzon, where AKP has not been successful historically, would resonate nationally, not least because millions of eastern Black Sea-origin people live in Istanbul and other large Turkish cities and maintain strong ties to their hometown; former Turkish PM Mesut Yilmaz is from Trabzon, and PM Erdogan's family is from nearby Rize. We last paid an official visit to the city in July 2007 (reftel). TRABZON REEMERGING -------------- ¶3. (U) Birthplace of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and a maritime gateway on the Silk Road, Trabzon had a place of prominence in the Ottoman Empire. At the turn of the 20th century, fifteen consulates were located in the city. (Today there are three: Russia, Georgia and Iran.) Trabzon's importance began to diminish upon completion of the Suez Canal and the Cold War with the Soviet Union further reinforced the city's isolation. What had been a city at the crossroads of Eurasia became a peripheral town in the new Turkish Republic. The fall of the Soviet Union and emergence of Russia as a major economic power (and Turkey's second largest trading partner),trade and investment relations with Georgia, and Trabzon's strategic importance along North-South and East-West energy corridors have helped re-energize the city of 400,000, which has benefited in recent years from major investments in its municipal, road and port infrastructure. The airport, scheduled to soon get a second runway, recently began servicing a few European cities directly, transforming the city's potential as a trading base, according to local business leaders. The Trabzon region, however, remains highly dependent on commodity agriculture, namely hazelnuts and tea, prices of which have remained depressed. People are another major export from Trabzon, where employment has not been able to keep up with the city's newfound potential. Outside of ship building and a few traditional industries, and despite its favorable location, the city has failed to attract or generate an industrial base to even begin to rival Turkey's "Anatolian tigers." TRABZON POLITICS PERSONAL; INCUMBENT CHP MAYOR POPULAR -------------- ¶4. (C) A common refrain, echoed throughout our meetings, is that Trabzonites vote for people not parties. Trabzon voters are not polarized politically; indeed, Black Sea people share a strong regional solidarity that supersedes political differences. In fact, the three current parliamentary Deputies from Trabzon represent each of the three major political parties. According to Trabzon Deputy Mayor Erdal ANKARA 00001828 002 OF 004 Cagdas, what Trabzon voters expect is a mayor in touch with the people -- one who will be with them in good times and bad, at weddings and funerals. CHP Mayor Canalioglu (whom we met in July 2007) is that type of mayor and will receive support in the upcoming election from traditionally non-CHP supporters, he argued. All of our interlocutors spoke kindly of him as a "nice guy," well-liked by citizens. CHP Trabzon Deputy Akif Hamzacebi emphasized, however, that a CHP victory cannot be assured. CHP won the municipality by a mere 350 votes in the last election, despite AKP having nominated an uncharismatic candidate. To further illustrate the point, in that same election, the Saadet Party, nominating a strong candidate, won 13 percent of the Trabzon vote, even though it polled only one percent nationally. AKP is an offshoot of the same political movement as Saadet, and AKP is well positioned to pick off at least some past Saadet voters in the coming election. But everybody's vote in Trabzon is ultimately up for grabs. AKP: GOVERNMENT USING ITS INFLUENCE TO SWAY TRABZON VOTERS -------------- ¶5. (C) AKP provincial headquarters, tellingly located in a more conservative, working-class part of town, resemble a government-in-waiting. Provincial Chairman Muhammet Balta exudes a confidence magnified by an office bigger than the mayor's and numerous assistants responding to his every request. Balta credited PM Erdogan with nearly every positive development in Trabzon and promised that when AKP is elected, it will tackle problems out of the government's hands presently, like downtown traffic and public transportation. But he had hardly an unkind word for his political opponents, and spoke kindly of the mayor. AKP does not play bare-knuckle politics in Trabzon. AKP, Balta told us, has not yet settled on a candidate. He knows it will be necessary to identify a charismatic figure, but the people, he said, already know AKP is with them. AKP voters trust it because AKP delivers on its promises and because it offers more than just services. AKP, he said, is "of the people" and "takes the people as its example." Noting AKP's women's and youth auxiliaries, he maintained that his party is reaching out to each citizen personally and the affection and enthusiasm the party feels for the people is reciprocated. ¶6. (C) Economic conditions in Trabzon present an opportunity to AKP, which has earned much of its national support for its stewardship of the economy. Apart from charisma and sympathy, Trabzon voters will prioritize jobs and economic issues in the upcoming municipal elections, according to all our interlocutors. Trabzon's lively and bustling downtown and world-class shopping district belie a depressed a jobs picture. There is little industry and the city does not yet compete with Turkey's other tourist hubs. Few of the forty thousand students who attend the local Black Sea Technical University choose to remain in Trabzon. Despite losing the Trabzon municipality in the past two elections, the AKP government in Ankara has been generous in its support of Trabzon's economic development. Deputy Mayor Cagdas conceded that Trabzon "gets its share" of infrastructure and development projects. AKP Deputy and former Saadet Party Trabzon Mayor Asim Aykan now coordinates local development issues in Parliament. He detailed for us some of the projects the government has sponsored in Trabzon: a $350 million coastal road; $300 million for a new ship-building dockyard; natural gas projects; a bridge connecting the city's two peninsulas; $200 million for a brand new, European-designed shopping mall; and extensive urban beautification. PM Erdogan, he maintained, does not discriminate against cities not governed by AKP. ¶7. (C) But Turkey is vulnerable to recession in Europe. Trabzon, in particular, would face lower prices for its main export, hazelnuts. An economic downturn could weaken AKP's chances in Trabzon if the party loses support nationally as a result of higher unemployment and lower economic growth. In response, the government is reportedly preparing to spend YTL 3 billion (USD 2 billion) on subsidies for hazelnut producers, a move it rejected in previous years. Most of our interlocutors, including the Chamber of Commerce President Sadan Eren, echoed the government line that Turkey can weather this economic storm, but leftist Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) Chairperson and human rights lawyer Suibel Suicmez reminded us that CHP reforms passed in 2001 helped ensure that Turkey's banking sector remained stable in the current crisis, something she believes CHP (to which SDP was ANKARA 00001828 003 OF 004 aligned in the last national election) can benefit from politically. ¶8. (C) CHP Deputy Hamzacebi argued that, in his view, the government in Ankara is prepared to push the limits of propriety to ensure it wins in Trabzon. The government, he said, is overriding a constitutional prohibition on landfilling the sea in order to construct a brand new stadium for the city's beloved Trabzonspor soccer club (all the more strategic given Trabzonspor's first place standing in the league this year). Hamzacebi also charged the government with gerrymandering. Despite no real growth in the city's population, the AKP government, he said, plans to designate Trabzon a "metropolitan municipality," effectively subsuming the present municipality into a larger metropolitan government. The metropolitan government would include outlying districts where AKP is strong, and weaken the influence of downtown CHP voters. He suggested the new layer of bureaucracy would lead to more graft -- something beginning to turn voters off to AKP. AKP representatives did not discuss with us any plans to designate Trabzon a "metropolitan municipality." MHP: IDEOLOGICALLY IN TUNE WITH TRABZON VOTERS, BUT RESOURCE-CONSTRAINED -------------- ¶9. (C) Black Sea people are known for their nationalistic character, making it fertile ground for MHP. The party has also developed a reputation for sound municipal government in the smaller cities it does govern. But a visit with MHP Trabzon Provincial Chairman Nihat Birinci underscored how lopsided the tables are between MHP and AKP in the effort unseat CHP. MHP provincial offices, while closer to the center of town, are at the top of an old five-story walk-up and grim by comparison to AKP. Whereas AKP officials embraced us, Birinci welcomed his U.S. visitors with customary MHP circumspection. Alluding indirectly to the party discipline MHP is known for, he said the party formula is to specify a clear program and implement it when elected. But he maintained he had enough resources to win, despite apparent evidence to the contrary. He noted the problems of traffic stemming from construction projects in town (an issue which has stung AKP mayors in Antalya and Ankara). Unlike AKP, he said MHP has decided on its candidate and will announce it in a few weeks. ¶10. (C) Trabzon is largely free of the secular/religious divisions dominating politics in Ankara, something MHP has sought to rise above nationally. The people are conservative, potentially playing well for the party, but extroverted and fun-loving, something MHP politicians are usually not. Suicmez joked that in Trabzon during Ramadan restaurants close all day, and then everyone drinks to break the fast. MHP has been fairly successful here because it can appeal to the people's patriotism while respecting -- and not exploiting, Birinci emphasized -- their religious sensibilities. Islam is central to Trabzon's identity, where Turkish settlement arrived relatively late. The region has a long history of settlement by Pontic Greeks, Georgians/Laz, and Armenians. Indeed, Trabzon is one of the few regions in present-day Turkey to have fallen under sustained foreign occupation in the modern era, having been overrun by Russia in the first World War and then awarded to Armenia in the Treaty of Sevres. Turkey swiftly objected to Sevres and had it annulled following the Turkish War of Independence, but the "Sevres syndrome" that continues to afflict Turkey today is especially pronounced here. SYMPATHY FOR GEORGIA, BUT GOOD RUSSIAN RELATIONS IMPORTANT -------------- ¶11. (SBU) A substantial percentage of Trabzon's people are ethnically Georgian (or Laz),descending from ancestors who converted to Islam centuries ago as the region came under Ottoman domination, or emigrated from the Batumi region of Georgia following the formal delineation of the border between Turkey and the USSR in 1921. Unsurprisingly, there was sympathy from our interlocutors for Georgia in its conflict with Russia, coupled, however, with criticism of Georgian President Saakashvili whom most blamed for starting the war (and who is unpopular with many Turkish Georgians for allegedly not respecting Muslim minority rights and Batumi's autonomy in Georgia). The Deputy Mayor and Chamber of Commerce President noted that the number of visitors from Georgia has decreased after the conflict, but said the level ANKARA 00001828 004 OF 004 had already been down in recent years and that more Trabzonites travel to Georgia than the other way around. They expressed concern, however, about the impact on trade with Russia if Turkish-Russian relations fall out of balance. Trabzon is banking on its economic future as a trade and energy hub; continued growth in trade and economic relations with Russia are critical. All sides expressed understanding and appreciation for the GOT approach on promoting stability in the region through Turkey's proposed Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey WILSON