TURKEY: CINDORUK AND SENER RE-ENTER, CENTER-RIGHT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000755 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/27/2019 TAGS: OSCE PGOV TU SUBJECT: TURKEY: CINDORUK AND SENER RE-ENTER, CENTER-RIGHT Classified By: POL Counselor Daniel O'Grady, for reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Husamettin Cindoruk and Abdullatif Sener, two names from Turkey's political past, have returned to active politics on the center-right, drawing attention to the now-minor parties that have languished there since the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Similar maneuverings in previous years generated little attention because of AKP's dominance among conservative voters. With AKP's recent stumble at local elections, however, some commentators are hopeful that a party of the right can pull voters away from AKP. END SUMMARY ¶2. (C) AKP's rise to power as a single-party government is due in no small part to the collapse of the True Path Party (DYP) and Motherland Party (ANAP) -- once Turkey's two main center right parties -- at the polls in 2002. Since then, DYP has tried to reclaim a place in Parliament by rebranding itself as the Democrat Party (DP),running through several unsuccessful chairmen, and trying, but failing, to unite with ANAP. In its latest attempt, DP has selected as its chairman Husamettin Cindoruk, a politician best known for having led a breakaway faction from DYP in 1997, which contributed to the downfall of a coalition government deemed by Turkey's secularists as having flirted too closely with religious politics. According to Sukru Kucuksahin, a Milliyet journalist with good contacts in the Motherland Party, Cindoruk has indicated his acute interest in restarting unification talks with ANAP with the goal of consolidating the resulting party well in advance of general elections scheduled for 2011. ¶3. (C) Abullatif Sener was the Welfare Party (RP) Finance Minister in the government that Cindoruk helped bring down. After Welfare was shut down for anti-secular activities, he was a member of the Virtue Party (FP) and then the AKP. After serving as Deputy Prime Minister under PMs Gul and Erdogan, he left AKP in 2007 criticizing AKP's economic policies and provocative social policy. Since then, his reported plans to found a new party have been a continual staple of political speculators. (NOTE: In July 2008, Sener told us that those plans were "firm" but contingent on finding financial support. END NOTE) Sener announced the creation of the Turkey Party (TP) on 26 May alongside a group of former DP and AKP politicians. TP may have a window of opportunity: Sener's home province of Sivas surprised the pollsters by rejecting AKP in favor of the (now leaderless) Grand Unity Party. TP has already converted Yasar Ozturk, a former AKP member of Parliament who represents the province of Yozgat, Sivas's western neighbor. (NOTE: One potential glitch, we understand, is the High Election Council (YSK) must approve the new party's name, and that in the past it has ruled against any attempt to corner the label "Turkey" for a political party. END NOTE) ¶4. (C) Comment: In any other year, the return of Cindoruk and Sener would be shrugged off as a political curiosity. But this year, AKP may be vulnerable after having been unable to earn enough votes in nationwide local elections to meet all but the most pessimistic of predictions, including their own. If AKP is indeed losing momentum, there may be room for a party to gain a foothold in the center-right. DP could reclaim its traditional spot and wrest votes from AKP on its centermost flank. The experience and tradition of DP's politicians could work either for them or against them: these politicians know the workings of government and are still close to the bureaucracy, but the voters may regard them as a continuation of the corrupt political infighting that led Turkey from crisis to crisis. Cindoruk's detractors in the press have been fast to claim that Cindoruk is being used by shady back room dealers much as he was in 1997. ¶5. (C) Comment (cont.): Sener, on the other hand, has a certain amount of charisma and perhaps the moral upper hand in having left AKP well before it stumbled. His history and recent press statements would suggest that his party will be looking to gather votes closer to AKP's heart, among religious conservative voters in Anatolia and perhaps among Kurds. This would bring him into the difficult prospect of competing with not only PM Erdogan, President Gul, and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, but also with Saadet, a ANKARA 00000755 002 OF 002 religiously-oriented party that is trying to attract voters from AKP's rightmost wing, and demonstrated some success in doing so in the March local elections. DP and TP both have difficult roads ahead of them, but AKP would be ill-advised to ignore them and assume they will fail. Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey SILLIMAN