Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09ANKARA485
2009-03-30 10:54:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Ankara
Cable title:  

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

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU 
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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)

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