Has Turkey's Long-Suffering Opposition Finally Found Its Winner?

 

After the landslide victory of Ekrem Imamoǧlu in Istanbul’s mayoral election and the general resurgence of the long-suffering Republican People’s Party (CHP) throughout the country the question of the hour is what all this means for President Tayyip Erdoǧan and his AKP party. Is the iron grip that Erdoǧan has maintained on the AKP and the country at large for more than 20 years, a grip that was reinforced only 10 months ago in the presidential election, starting to slip?

Huge crowds greeted Imamoglu's victory

While it’s too early to write Erdoǧan’s political obituary, one can draw a few conclusions from Sunday’s elections. The individual candidate is extremely important. When Erdoǧan himself is on the ballot he has almost been assured of victory. He is one of the most effective, charismatic campaigners I have ever seen and has an intuitive sense of what the crowds want. It is a different story when he is merely campaigning for someone else.

Voters didn't want Erdogan's chosen candidate

 Murat Kurum, Erdoǧan’s hand-picked candidate for mayor of Istanbul seems like a nice, decent person. But he couldn’t compete with the flair and almost pop star personality of Imamoǧlu. Erdoǧan campaigned hard for his man and even sent 17 cabinet ministers to help rally the faithful in Istanbul. But it was all to no avail. Voters could tell the difference between the real item and his chosen puppet. When Erdoǧan himself was on the ballot he could make voters temporarily suspend their anger at the ruinous state of the economy and the shoddy construction that led to so many deaths in last year’s earthquake. When Erdoǧan is not on the ballot, voters are less willing to forgive and forget. Although these were local elections they were a sharp reminder to Erdoǧan that people are really struggling and so far he has not provided any solutions.

One also got a glimpse of post-Erdoǧan Turkish politics. With two consecutive victories in the country’s largest and most important city Imamoǧlu has certainly boosted his claim to challenge for the presidency in 2028. Like Erdoǧan, he is an effective and charismatic campaigner and would be a serious candidate. Unlike Erdoǧan he does not enjoy an iron grip on his own party, the CHP. After so many years in the wilderness there are sure to be many in the party who will claim the right to run for president. Imamoǧlu’s task of convincing his fellow party members that he is the strongest candidate will not be easy or straightforward.

Can he ride his landslide in Istanbul to the presidency?

 And what should one expect if CHP actually won the presidency? Perhaps there would be a slight easing of the overtly Islamic trends of Erdoǧan’s government, but I doubt very much there would a return to the very strict secularism of earlier CHP governments. The CHP has also shown no signs of reducing Turkey’s strong nationalistic tendencies. It is, after all, the party that Atatürk founded. People anticipating something like a Scandinavian social democracy will probably be disappointed. There may well be a return to a more parliamentary government in place of Erdoǧan’s dominant role. But it’s also possible that once a person gets his hands on that kind of power, he - or she - would be reluctant to give it up.

The Kurds showed once again that they dominate elections in the southeastern part of the country. The Kurdish party won all those provinces and a couple of others. And the very large block of Kurdish voters in Istanbul clearly helped Imamoǧlu. What will the Kurds demand in return for any future support of a possible CHP government? Tricky question, given the historical animosity between the two groups.

 And what of Erdoǧan himself? How will he react to this defeat? He faces not only the challenge of a revived CHP but a renewed challenge from the resurrection of an openly Islamic party that took key votes away from AKP and won two provinces. The renewed Islamist Welfare Party is a serious challenge to Erdogan. It has a much stronger anti-Israel and anti-semitic stance than Erdogan and took 6% of the votes away from AKP. Will this make Erdoǧan double down on his nationalist and Islamic rhetoric or will be continue the slightly – very slightly -- more moderate path we have seen recently?

What now for Turkey's dominant leader?

 He has said he will not stand for election in 2028. He will be 74 in 2028 and has run the country almost single-handedly for more than 20 years and is beginning to look tired. He controls every decision, big or small, for the entire government. Nothing happens without his signature or approval. Even his opponents concede that few people work harder than he does. That takes a toll after a while, and maybe he means it when he says he won’t run again. But it’s much too early to take bets on that.

 There is already talk of succession, but if he interprets the recent election rout as a sign of what may happen when he leaves, he could decide to stay for another term.  One name frequently mentioned as a possible successor is one of Erdoǧan’s sons-in-law – 44-year-old Selcuk Bayraktar. Educated at the Istanbul Technical University, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT he returned to Turkey to work in the family defence company Baykar where he developed the very successful series of Turkish UAVs, drones. He is the company’s chief technology officer while his older brother Haluk – a graduate of the Middle East Technical University and Columbia – is the CEO. The Wall Street Journal recently had a long feature on Selcuk that mentioned the possibility of a future political role for him.

Will the son-in-law ultimately take over?

 He seems well liked and respected across a wide spectrum of domestic and international opinion but, so far, he has deflected all mention as a possible successor to his father-in-law. He is wise to do so. Turkish politics is a blood sport. Once it becomes apparent that Erdoǧan is serious about leaving, the competing factions within AKP, each with its own powerful baron and prince, could easily pull the party apart. Until now Erdoǧan has been able to control the centrifugal forces within AKP. But if he is out of the picture the very future of AKP is in some question. One of the major challenges any possible successor faces is controlling those forces with their ambitious, hungry personalities.

 Given the critical role of Bayrak in Turkey’s burgeoning defence industry it seems to be a fair question whether the younger Bayraktar really wants or needs to follow his father-in-law. But given Erdoǧan’s legendary powers of persuasion nothing should be ruled out. There will be a great deal of very sharp-elbowed jockeying within both major parties during the next couple of years and only a very brave – or foolish – person would predict an outcome now.

Protests Alone Will Never Win Elections

In retrospect no one should be surprised by yesterday’s election results. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) proved once again that it is a formidable political machine with firm control over almost half the Turkish electorate. Once again the opposition learned the painful lesson that by itself protest against the increasing excesses of President Tayyip Erdoğan is not enough to win elections. The only positive note for the anti-Erdoğan forces is that AKP failed to receive enough votes to change the constitution unilaterally and legitimise Erdoğan’s power grab.,

Over the next few days we will hear the tired old excuses of how the AKP didn’t ‘play fair’ or somehow manipulated the electorate – again. It is time to end the whinging and whining and get serious about the serial election defeats. Of course the AKP played the national security card and tried to frighten everyone about the ‘looming’ Kurdish problem. Politics in Turkey is a full contact sport. Domestic and foreign developments since the June elections played right into that theme. People willing to vote for the predominantly Kurdish party HDP in June had second thoughts in November. Many nationalists who voted for the MHP party in June also had second thoughts and decided to stick with the AKP as the best guaranty of Turkey’s security.

Different Election, Same Result

But these anti-Kurdish, national security themes do not explain the persistent failures of the opposition parties to mount a serious challenge to AKP’s dominance. This goes far beyond Erdoğan’s bombastic, divisive rhetoric. As things stand now the best they can hope for is getting enough votes to form a very junior partner in a coalition with AKP. Sadly, they would construe this as a victory. It’s more like calling the retreat from Dunkirk a victory.

            As long as the opposition parties remain divided the AKP, as the representative of Turkey’s overwhelming socially conservative electorate, has a fairly easy job. It is mathematically possible, but practically/politically impossible, for the opposition parties to unite and get more votes than the AKP. But egos and long outdated political ideologies make this nothing more than a pipe dream at the moment. It is nice to get the praise from worthy international organizations and from Turkey’s small but vocal intelligentsia, but neither of these can deliver enough votes to make a dent in AKP’s electoral armour.

            Furthermore, the opposition has to admit that in hundreds of large and small towns across the country the AKP municipal officials have done a decent job – not only in running the municipalities but in establishing solid, local AKP branches that deliver the votes in every election. It is this unglamorous groundwork, not censorious articles in the Economist, that wins elections.

            A useful first step might be to understand how the AKP can withstand the onslaught of serious issues like a declining economy, increasing unemployment, depreciating currency, and a very confused foreign policy. It’s almost as if despite all these issues the AKP electorate simply does not trust the opposition parties to represent its interests. “They may be corrupt. They be leading the country into a dangerous swamp. But they are OUR people. They know us and we know them. We don’t know you.” Demonstrably, very few people from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) are ‘one of us.’

            The CHP, for example, prides itself on being the party that Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, created. The party proudly symbolizes the reforms that Atatürk made as he rebuilt Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire almost 100 years ago. Yet, in my own time in small towns across Anatolia, I learned that a great many people in small-town Turkey did not share the elite’s reverence for Atatürk. Quite the opposite, they felt ignored and believed their time-honoured socially conservative traditions were being trampled under the wave of ‘Westernization’ imposed from the top down.

            Part of Erdoğan’s political genius is that he recognizes this reality and has built an enduring career by building on it. His speeches carry the same theme, familiar to demagogues around the world.  “Only I understand you and can represent you – not those people safely removed in their Istanbul villas or foreign capitals.”

            Harping on Erdoğan’s obvious faults will not change this. The only real threat I see to Erdoğan is from within the AKP itself. He has done a good job purging the party of many who do not share his extreme views. But a core of existing and former MPs is increasingly uneasy with some of his actions. But will they have the courage to act? Will they reach out to like-minded people in other parties to from a new political movement, free from the cant of the past and extremism of the present? Does their concern for the direction of the country outweigh their fear of retribution from the reis – the boss?

            Will the anti-Erdoğan forces follow the good advice that Benjamin Franklin gave to his fellow revolutionaries during the American War for Independence. “Gentlemen, we either hang together, or we hang separately.”

No, They Will Never Learn

Pathetic, simply pathetic. While Tayyip Erdoğan was giving a Master Class in politics on his way to victory in Turkey’s presidential race his opposition was AWOL (absent without leave.) Opposition voters had a golden opportunity to derail Erdoğan’s presidential plans, but their inability (unwillingness?) to capitalise on this opportunity means that the future of Turkey is completely out of their hands.

            Even with all his manipulation, public financing and suppression of the media Erdogan got in with just under 52% of the vote. One can only wonder what the outcome would have been if even half of the 13 million voters (out of 53 million eligible voters) who failed to vote had gone to the polls. Even the former president Ahmet Necdet Sezer refused to vote. Some couldn’t be bothered to get off their sun beds in Bodrum or leave the cocktail party circuit in Bebek to vote. Others, like a young columnist in the Daily Telegraph of London, justified their failure to vote on the grounds that the election was not ‘true’ democracy and that they didn’t want to participate in a sham election. Unbelievable! While they preserved their precious democratic scruples Erdoğan was busy tightening his iron grip over Turkey. They have only themselves to blame for the outcome.

            Of course he’s ruthless! Of course he plays hard ball and appeals to baser instincts of his followers! Of course he manipulates wherever he can! What did they expect? Politics in Turkey is a ‘full-contact’ sport. It is not a parlour game limited to polite discussions in beautiful homes along the Bosphorus.It’s about time they woke up to the realities of modern Turkey.

            If the opposition ever wants to beat Erdoğan it has to learn a few hard lessons.

1.      Come up with a message that means something to the mass of the people. What is your positive vision for Turkey's future? Simply focusing on Erdoğan’s obvious faults has failed over and over again. I have never heard any opposition candidate say something positive, give any hint on how he would improve services to the people. AKP candidates are masters at this, always focusing on services they provide for the people. Do something For the people rather than lecture To them about the failures of Tayyip Erdoğan. Essentially the so-called main opposition CHP has to ask itself a very serious question.  Why has it won so few elections since the introduction of multi-party politics in Turkey after World War II? What exactly does it stand for? Could it be that the mass of Turkish voters rejects everything it stands for? Instead of blaming the voters maybe it’s time to blame the message.

2.      Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, died in 1938. Let him rest in peace. Any political party that wants to be successful today has to do more than repeat ad nauseam pithy little phrases from his speeches. Atatürk set the general direction of Turkey, but it may come as a shock to most opposition politicians that the man himself is no longer that relevant to the vast majority of Turks. Maybe he should be. But that’s beside the point. He isn’t. And no one understands this better than Tayyip Erdoğan. Say what you will about the man, he understands his people. The opposition is lost in a time warp and hasn’t got a clue.

3.      Admit that AKP has a vastly superior political organisation. Learn from it. Copy it, if necessary. It’s much more than giving away free refrigerators or coal or any other gift. Effective politics is hard work. Without a strong grass-roots organisation in every town in Turkey and without a massive get-out-the-vote effort you will never win. You will always be seen as a creature of the so-called ‘elite’ – far removed from ordinary people who care much more about jobs than about vague threats that Tayyip Erdoğan poses for Atatürk’s legacy.

4.      Perhaps the CHP and MHP should merge, formalise the arrangement they had during the presidential election. CHP likes to pretend it is a social-democratic party. But the reality is that it is just as nationalistic as MHP. Of course such a move would alienate some CHP’s more effete members, but so what? They don’t bother to vote anyway. The genuine political left – the real social democratic movement -- in Turkey is minuscule and doesn’t count for much. So why shouldn’t the nationalists join forces?

      Will the CHP make any effort to change? More important, will it even recognize that its policies must change to meet the needs of today’s Turkey? Very, very doubtful. The early signs are that the party will be consumed by yet another sterile leadership battle rather than focus on  the obvious need for basic reform of the party. Erdoğan could not buy a better opposition party. He must be laughing all the way to the presidential palace.

Where does Turkey go now? Will Erdoğan be able to get his wish and replace the present parliamentary system with a strong executive presidency? Maybe, maybe not. While he won the presidency he didn’t get as many votes as his sycophants were hoping. It may be difficult for the Erdoğan-less AKP to get a large enough majority in the next general election to change the constitution.

What will the current president Abdullah Gül do? Will he fight for a senior position in the new AKP or will he retire gently into the night? It is no secret that the Erdoğan people would love to push him not-so-gently into the night. For one thing he has stated several times that he prefers the parliamentary system to the strong, executive presidency. He also presents a less strident, more amenable face to Turkey’s Western partners.

How will Turkey deal with the looming constitutional crisis when Erdoğan starts to act like an executive president instead of a figure head? Even with a puppet prime minister Erdoğan may have problems keeping the AKP together.

Turkey faces serious internal and external challenges in the next several months. Those people who piously abstained from voting in this election have to decide whether they are going to help the country through these crises or whether they will remain in the stadium seats as mere spectators.

Tercih onlarin. The choice is theirs.

Will They Never Learn?

In normal circumstances someone who has sharply divided his country with inflammatory rhetoric, driven foreign policy from the much vaunted ‘zero problems’ to the current ‘zero friends’, scorned the fundamental democratic principles of separation of powers and judicial independence, crippled the media and weakened the economy should have no chance of being elected president. But these are not normal circumstances in Turkey. And Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan has a very good chance of becoming Turkey’s first president chosen by direct popular ballot.

How is this possible, you might well ask? Liberals in Turkey and abroad scratch their heads in wonder about how someone with this dismal record can retain the trust of so many Turkish voters. By all rights, according to them, he would be consigned to a small footnote in history by now instead of retaining the trust of about 50% of Turkish voters.

There are at least three reasons for this seeming contradiction.

The first is that corruption scandals like the ones that rocked Erdoğan’s government and the abuse of power are nothing new to Turkish voters. Governments long before Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) were no virgins in these issues. Voters only have to look back to the 1980s and 1990s to remember similar, if not worse, examples of corruption, mismanagement, and abuse of democratic institutions. Being a ‘friend of the party’ counted much more than planning regulations in winning valuable construction projects. Cronyism was rampant throughout the economy. Judicial independence was a nice thought, but that was as far as it went.

No one should kid themselves that the pre-Erdoğan media was free in the European or American sense. Many journalists were censured or jailed for daring to criticise the military, comment favourably on the Kurds, or obliquely hint that Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, had human foibles. No serious attempt was made to solve the assassination of a prominent investigative journalist who was thorn in the side of the so-called ‘Deep State.’

The less said about economic mis-management in the 1990s the better. Serial financial crises severely damaged the average citizen. People at the top of the pyramid were delighted with the money they earned from sky-high interest rates and were in no hurry to fix the ridiculous inflation that was making life very difficult for the remaining 99%. Everyone knew that the music had to stop sometime, but hoped they could make their millions before that happened. And collapse it did in 2001 when the country’s financial system was almost wiped out.

And then there are the Kurds, who now seem to hold the trump card in the upcoming presidential elections. The 1990s saw some of the worst violence between the Kurdish guerilla group (PKK) and the Turkish security forces. Successive operations by the regular army and ‘special’ forces failed to stamp out the violence that claimed more than 30,000 lives. In many cases these military operations only increased the Kurds’ burning sense of resentment. Erdoğan, to his great credit, was the first Turkish prime minister to try to solve the Kurdish politically instead of militarily. This may be nothing more than a cynical move on his part to get Kurdish support for his presidential bid, but the fact remains that south-eastern Turkey remains relatively calm.

The second major reason for Erdoğan’s continued support is that under the AKP living standards for millions of ordinary Turks have improved. Health care is better organized, public services are sharply improved, and elderly citizens are given cash supplements to their meagre pensions. A friend did an informal survey of villagers in his area and found a very simple reason for their continued support of AKP. People are better off financially and feel more secure with a single party government. Abstract issues like freedom of the press, abuse of government powers, environmental protection count for very little against cash in hand.

The third reason for Erdoğan’s likely victory is that elements of the main opposition Republic People’s Party (CHP) have learned nothing from their previous electoral failures. The party leadership has finally come to its senses and joined with other opposition parties in nominating a joint candidate acceptable to a wide range of the population. The candidate, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu, is a soft spoken, respected scholar who previously was the head of the Organization of Islamic Countries. More important, he vows to protect and enhance the country’s democratic institutions. The vast majority of the Turkish population is socially conservative, and Ihsanoğlu is exactly the type of candidate required to attract that vote.

And yet the hard-core Kemalists, rigid followers of Atatürk, refuse to support him. To them, Ihsanoğlu is not hard-core enough. Such a stance only reveals how little they know their own country. A frustrated anti-Erdoğan friend could only put his head in his hands and moan at the idiocy of this view.

 “Atatürk has been dead for almost 76 years. Let him rest in peace. He set the direction and the country has moved on. We need to recognize reality in Turkey. We need to accept that it was our own failures that set the stage for AKP’s electoral success. We need to learn how to appeal to the material needs of the bulk of people, to respect their right to be devout Moslems, and to reinforce real democracy. Only then will we be in a position to seriously challenge Tayyip Erdoğan.”

Alas, this remains a distant dream. Even with the backing of all the opposition parties Ihsanoğlu has only a slim chance to win. Without the full support of all those opposed to Tayyip Erdoğan the opposition will remain in the political wilderness for many years to come.