Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08ANKARA1828
2008-10-20 16:18:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Ankara
Cable title:  

TURKEY: TRABZON UP FOR GRABS IN NATIONWIDE LOCAL

Tags:  PGOV ECON ETRD EIND SOCI TU 
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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)

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.

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WILSON