AKP-CHP BATTLE FOR SECULAR STRONGHOLD OF IZMIR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 000281 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/21/2019 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU SUBJECT: AKP-CHP BATTLE FOR SECULAR STRONGHOLD OF IZMIR REF: 08 ANKARA 1831 Classified By: POL Counselor Daniel J. O'Grady for reasons 1.4(b,d) ¶1. (C) Summary: The Izmir mayoral race is shaping up as the tightest and most important contest in the March 29 local elections. Winning Turkey's third largest city, and the country's last main bastion of secularism, is at the heart of the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP's) quest to regain fresh legitimacy after a turbulent 2008. AKP's candidate Taha Aksoy, an MP and local businessman, faces an uphill battle in defeating incumbent Republican People's Party (CHP) mayor Aziz Kocaolgu, but has two things going for him: AKP's extremely focused and organized campaign, and CHP's feckless infighting, epitomized by a very public quarrel between CHP's mayoral candidate and its former provincial party chair who is now a mayoral candidate in an Izmir sub-province. Five weeks out, AKP is poised to pick up a handful of sub-provincial mayoral positions and increase its seats on local councils, while the race for the prize Izmir mayor's seat looks neck-and-neck. Given the still strongly secular nature of central Izmir, this is CHP's race to lose. It may. End summary. -------------- AKP Focused and Ultra-Organized -------------- ¶2. (C) AKP Izmir Provincial Chairman Aydin Sengul told us February 19 that winning the mayorship and performing well in other Izmir races is a critical party of AKP's strategy to improve on its success in 2004 local elections -- when it won 42 percent of the vote nationally but lost several important mayoral races, including Izmir, Diyarbakir, and Eskisehir. Sengul said AKP had faced a tough year in 2008, when it barely escaped from being closed down by the Constitutional Court, and saw its support drop slightly over allegations of AKP corruption. Performing well in local elections would demonstrate that the ruling party continues to have a strong mandate, he thought. Sengul emphasized that winning CHP's self-perceived fortress of Izmir would quash opposition claims that AKP no longer retained broad support. ¶3. (C) Sengul told us that AKP's mayoral candidate Taha Aksoy, an AKP MP from Izmir who is running under the slogan "Change Is Needed," is superior to incumbent CHP mayor Aziz Kocaoglu "in every respect." He said that Aksoy is a "well-educated, multi-lingual, businessman" with a track record of "visionary business leadership," in contrast to Kocaoglu's inability to deliver on promised municipal projects, including a languishing effort to build an Izmir metro system. AKP's organizational efforts in Izmir are in full swing, according to Sengul. The party had sub-divided each municipality into smaller areas, each with its own volunteer corps, female auxiliary, and youth auxiliary. He said AKP staff and volunteers have been going door-to-door in all of Izmir's 30 municipalities "for at least six months" and are ramping up their efforts now. The workers explain AKP's accomplishments and try to reduce skepticism when they encounter voters who believe AKP is an anti-secular party, Sengul explained. ¶4. (C) Sengul said CHP errs by considering Izmir its fortress; the True Path Party (DYP) and Motherland Party (ANAP) had governed here in the 1980's and 1990's. Although there had been no recent public polls conducted on the Izmir race, he said AKP's most recent poll -- conducted prior to the selection of Aksoy as AKP's candidate -- put AKP at 36 percent, CHP at 42 percent, and MHP at 7 percent. AKP believes the popularity of Aksoy has made the race neck-and-neck, and is conducting a poll now to test its theory, according to Sengul. He believes that AKP also is on track to reach its other goals in Izmir: surpassing its provincial general assembly vote total in 2004 elections, when it received 32 percent to CHP's 35 percent; doubling its seven sub-provincial mayoral seats; and significantly increasing its presence in municipal assemblies, where it currently hold 35 percent of seats compared to CHP's 45 percent. -------------- CHP Confidence ANKARA 00000281 002 OF 003 -------------- ¶5. (C) CHP officials are not worried. CHP Provincial Party Chairman Rifat Nalbantoglu told us February 19 that CHP incumbent mayor Kocaoglu would win re-election with more than 50 percent of votes, soundly defeating Aksoy, who he noted had lost as AKP's Izmir mayoral candidate in 2004 local elections. He also predicted that CHP would win 24-25 of 30 mayorships. Nalbantoglu said the strong delivery of services would be the main factor causing voters to favor CHP in Izmir, followed by voter discontent with AKP's handling of the economic crisis, and "a common knowledge that AKP is involved in corruption throughout the country." CHP Deputy Mayor Yusuf Ali Karaman told us he felt "comfortable" that CHP would win the mayorship and most other races; he was "surprised" to hear that many analysts in Ankara viewed the race as close. Karaman believes the most significant factor in Izmir elections is that most voters want to continue the city's "strongly Western-oriented social democratic orientation." Both said state distribution of aid would help AKP win over poor voters but would not have a strong impact on the results in Izmir. -------------- CHP Disunity -------------- ¶6. (C) CHP's outward confidence belies inner party strife, according to several non-political contacts who support CHP or at least do not support AKP. Jak Kaya, a prominent businessman who also leads Izmir's Jewish community, told us that Kocaoglu has long been at odds with Kemal Karatas, the former CHP Provincial Party Chairman who was recently named CHP's candidate for the ultra-secular Izmir sub-municipality of Konak. According to Kaya, the local elections brought to life a dormant struggle between Kocaoglu and Karatas over who should lead CHP in Izmir. In the past three months, the local press had documented increasingly sharp barbs between the two as they jockeyed to become the candidate for Izmir mayor, according to Kaya. Karatas had called Kocaoglu unfit for the job, and Kocaoglu struck back by leaving Karatas off of guest lists for important city events. Kaya said CHP named Karatas as its Konak candidate in order to silence him and bury the very public distraction. CHP's Nalbantoglu told us the interpersonal struggle had been "put in the past, for now." ¶7. (C) Amnesty International Izmir President Taner Kilic told us the Kocaoglu-Karatas feud demonstrates that CHP politicians place their own personal interests over the interests of the city. He believes this leads to unnecessary bureaucratic struggles that result in woeful municipal services and CHP's inability to deliver on promised projects, such as the metro system. One CHP volunteer told us that she had experienced CHP disorganization first hand, when she recently went to a Sunday election volunteer training, only to find no CHP trainers present. Izmir attorney Nalan Erkem told us the failure to deliver services forced CHP to claim that the election is a referendum on the importance of the secular system in Turkey. In her view, the symbol of this "sham campaign tactic" is the gigantic Mt. Rushmore-like bust of Ataturk that the local government is constructing alongside the road from the airport to the city. Nalan believes this "huge waste of money" is a shallow attempt by CHP to mask its weak performance and internal discord. ¶8. (C) Although our non-political contacts split on whether CHP's Kocaoglu would ultimately pull out a win, all agreed that CHP discord and campaign mismanagement would significantly affect election results. Kaya told us that the public outbursts by Karatas had made him so unpopular that he might achieve the "once unthinkable result" of a CHP loss in the ultra-secular Konak sub-province. Erkem said CHP, by "shooting itself in the foot," was allowing the superbly organized AKP an increasingly realistic chance to come out ahead in many of the Izmir races. She believes AKP will also be helped by its solid performance in having delivered exemplary municipal services in the seven of Izmir's 30 sub-provinces it controls. -------------- Comment ANKARA 00000281 003 OF 003 -------------- ¶9. (C) Turkish economic woes do not yet appear to be translating into voter opposition to AKP, while local personalities and issues are playing key roles in local races. In Izmir, CHP's discord and AKP's superior campaign management are sure to make the mayoral race much closer than CHP's overconfident predictions. AKP's well-organized efforts to target Izmir's poor and growing middle class areas are likely to help it increase its 2004 vote total, when it received 32 percent of the vote, and add a handful of sub-provincial mayoral seats to the seven it currently holds. Even if AKP does not win the mayor's race, its expanded presence would raise its political clout in the secular bastion of Izmir, and epitomize CHP's continuing failure to present a viable alternative to AKP. A CHP loss in the mayoral race, an outside possibility that could happen if CHP does not get its act together soon, would very likely lead to renewed calls from CHPers for the resignation of CHP Chairman Deniz Baykal. 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