TURKISH ELECTIONS: JUST "ONE MINUTE," MR. ERDOGAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 000485 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/30/2029 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU SUBJECT: TURKISH ELECTIONS: JUST "ONE MINUTE," MR. ERDOGAN REF: A. ANKARA 446 ¶B. ANKARA 466 Classified By: Ambassador James F. Jeffrey, reasons 1.4(b,d) ¶1. (C) Summary: In nation-wide local elections on March 29, the Turkish voters gave 39 percent of the votes to the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP),enough for it to retain first place in the polling, but shy of the 40 percent that was widely understood to be the threshold for victory for the party. AKP also lost 19 provincial capitals, gaining only five in return. AKP eked out victories in the key races of Istanbul and Ankara, but was trounced by the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Diyarbakir and the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in Izmir. Although Prime Minister Erdogan claimed victory, albeit humbly, in a speech at midnight, the press is nearly unanimous in assessing the results as a loss for AKP, indicating that a significant portion of the Turkish public wants a check on AKP hegemony. AKP will exit the election in soul searching mode, trying to find ways to both make inroads into the political center and to recapture the votes it lost to the Nationalist Action Party (MHP),Saadet Partisi (SP), and DTP before parliamentary elections in 2011. Erdogan's gaze is likely to stay focused on his poll numbers as he prepares for 2011 Parliamentary elections. Turkey's foreign policy approach will continue in much the same way it is conducted now: in fits and starts and with an eye always carefully watching public opinion. End summary. ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL -------------- ¶2. (C) Heading into the elections, AKP had as its goal to perform better than its result in 2004 local elections, in which it captured 41.7 percent of the provincial general assembly seats nationwide and 40.2 percent of the votes in mayors' races. The general perception in the press, among analysts, and among politicians (including our AKP contacts) was that AKP needed 40 percent or more to be able to declare an outright win. Most of the polling companies were predicting that AKP would easily pass 40 percent. With 99 percent of the votes counted, AKP is hovering at 40 percent but has lost a net 15 provincial capitals, mostly along Turkey's industrial coastlines, where the economic crisis has hit hard. These results further demonstrate the unreliability of Turkish polls. ¶3. (C) In his midnight speech, Erdogan was calm, humble, and contrite, but still portrayed the elections as a victory. He noted that AKP's percentage was greater than the combined percentages of the two main opposition parties, the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). (Note: while true at the time, CHP and MHP NOW have a projected combined 43 percent of the vote.) Erdogan asserted that AKP had struggled against Turkey's major media groups, and had been affected detrimentally by the economy. Erdogan said he was proud that AKP had not pursued "regional" or "sectarian" politics, but had provided services to all people. He said that he was saddened by electoral losses in Antalya, Sanliurfa, and Adana. Erdogan assessed the elections to be a message from the Turkish voters, and promised that the AKP would govern as the party of all of Turkey's voters and would cooperate with all the mayors, regardless of their party affiliation. ¶4. (C) The press has also assessed the elections as a message to AKP, and that message is the angry, frustrated, "one minute" that Erdogan himself threw at David Ignatius at Davos when he felt he was not being given his time to be heard. Press commentators have been arguing that a large portion of the Turkish public wants stronger checks on AKP hegemony. CHP recaptured several coastal bastions and its candidate in Istanbul polled a surprising 37 percent to finish second. The MHP stole six provinces in southern and western Anatolia from AKP. Hasan Cemal of the "Milliyet" daily newspaper pointed out that these provinces rely on tourism and light ANKARA 00000485 002 OF 003 organized industry, and are thus more vulnerable to international economic trends; AKP's insistence that the global economic crisis would not hit Turkey may have hurt them badly here. Erdogan's admonition last year that unhappy citizens should either love or leave Turkey should have played well in these nationalist provinces, but didn't seem to help. It only appears to have contributed to AKP's poor showing in the heavily Kurdish Southeast, where it failed to capture Diyarbakir and lost both Van and Siirt. Mumtazer Turkone of the "Zaman" daily argues that Kurds cannot be won over merely with religion, handouts, and symbolic cultural gestures. Their problems are ones of economics and identity, which continue to fester and which AKP has not yet successfully addressed at their root causes. ¶5. (C) The greatest winner in the election was, perhaps, A and G polling company, which has managed for the third time to come closest to predicting the correct election results, despite being the statistical outlier in all three contests. A and G's chairman, Adil Gur, correctly noted to us a week before the election a growing trend for voters to shift from AKP to undecided, and correctly concluded that those voters would shift their support to one of the opposition parties rather than back to AKP. Other polling companies' outlandishly high predictions were in part due to improper sampling methods, but also to missing this trend and thereby misallocating the undecided vote. WHERE DOES AKP GO FROM HERE -------------- ¶6. (C) Although AKP beat its competitors in terms of outright mayorships and vote percentage, the result was a clear disappointment for a party that in January had hoped for 50 percent of the vote, and last week still expected a number in the mid-40's Senior AKP contacts had repeatedly told us that a result below 40 percent, or losing Istanbul or Ankara, would constitute a loss in the party's mind. Erdogan's tone during his midnight speech evinced his resolve but also suggested that he viewed the results as a slight defeat and a setback for AKP's policy plans. Not surprisingly, AKP is trying to spin the results as victory. Prime Ministerial Foreign Policy Advisor Ahmet Davutoglu was upbeat in a conversation with the Ambassador on March 30. He said he viewed the result as a "victory" given the economic problems and that the party had been in power for six years. ¶7. (C) Erdogan is a fighter and natural politician. He will spend the coming weeks assessing the reasons for AKP's relative decline, and then set about to right the course in the lead up to 2011 elections. (Note: Many contacts tell us that Erdogan is the only Turkish politician who is campaigning year-round, constantly thinking of the next election cycle. End note.). Foremost, Erdogan can be expected to keep up the nationalist bluster that was on display during the Gaza crisis and reached an apogee during his January Davos walk-out. Erdogan's confidence and defiance among world leaders led to large AKP gains in the polls, and was probably responsible for AKP doing as well as it did amid a sharply declining economy. Erdogan is also likely to focus on improving the economy, without which he will not be able to stem a further decline, and re-build the broad-based support necessary to win big in 2011. AKP had delayed on an IMF standby agreement in the lead-up to elections, fearing that any cut-back in spending would hurt them at the polls. Post elections, Erdogan will face great pressure to take necessary measures quickly, in order to give the economy a chance to rebound prior to 2011 elections. ¶8. (C) Re-gaining voters lost to other parties will be trickier. Earning the confidence of MHP and Saadet voters would probably require a more nationalistic tone, which could further alienate Kurdish voters in the Southeast, and which could lead to further stalling on EU political reforms, such as improving fundamental freedoms and pushing for constitutional changes. We believe Erdogan will not choose one over the other, but will instead try to consolidate his ANKARA 00000485 003 OF 003 image in the center of Turkish politics while still currying the nationalist and religious vote with Davos-style gestures that are otherwise costless on the domestic front. ¶9. (C) As he looks toward recapturing lost votes and positioning himself toward 2011, Erdogan is likely to orchestrate a cabinet reshuffle. AKP's relative decline provides Erdogan, who is generally opposed to frequent cabinet turnovers, the opportunity to infuse the party with new energy, demonstrate support for certain key issues, such as the Kurdish issue, and conveniently purge any opponents. The most likely targets are Energy Minister Hilmi Guler, an MP from Ordu who is already being blamed for AKP's loss there; State Minister Kursad Tuzman, often seen as disrespectful toward ordinary citizens; and Interior Minister Besir Atalay. THE OPPOSITION AT THE GATES -------------- ¶10. (C) The opposition will claim these elections as a victory. In the provincial assembly elections, CHP picked up five percentage points over its 2004 results and MHP picked up four. Their strong results will strengthen their calls that AKP work more closely with them in the Grand National Assembly. It may also embolden them to be even more obstructive than they have been, as they would have a claim to represent a growing proportion of Turkish society. MHP, in particular, has been playing a quiet game of enabling some of AKP's more controversial projects, such as the legalization of the headscarf in universities and the election of Abdullah Gul to the presidency in 2007. With proof of a wider voter base, MHP may demand tangible compensation for easing AKP's future legislative agenda, particularly in amending the Turkish constitution, which AKP cannot do on its own. ¶11. (C) Also notable are the results of both the DTP and SP, which each polled nearly five percent across Turkey. DTP's five points reinforce the assessment that AKP has not become the party of Turkey's Kurdish population, despite working to end PKK violence, allow the Kurdish language to enter the public sphere, and to throw money and appliances at Kurdish voters in Kurdish-majority provinces. Although five percent is not enough for DTP to enter Parliament as a party in general elections, the result, in some commentators' eyes, validates its existence as a political party and argues that DTP serves a necessary function in the Turkish political arena. Saadet's five percent suggests that AKP may be losing touch with the religious right, part of what is considered AKP's core voters. COMMENT: WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE U.S. -------------- ¶12. (C) We expect the AKP government to continue the main thrust of its existing foreign policies in much the same way it is conducting them now: in fits and starts and with an eye always carefully watching public opinion. Because it is no doubt feeling bitten by the public in these elections, despite most pre-election polls suggesting otherwise, AKP will be especially wary of marching too far ahead of where it assesses the public mind to be. Foreign policy will therefore be conducted on a case-by-case basis with sensitivity to the overarching political atmosphere at the time. Issues that enjoy relatively broad support from across party lines, such as the normalization of relations with Armenia and renewed activity to meet EU standards, should not be affected. On more sensitive topics where a consensus has been more difficult to attain, such as negotiations on a comprehensive settlement to the long-standing division of Cyprus, charting a way forward may have just become trickier. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey Jeffrey