Erdoğan Needs To Be Very Careful At This Point

A possible sign that Turkey’s notoriously inaccurate election polls may for once be on the right track is the increasingly shrill and often bizarre behaviour of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the run-up to June’s general election.

Since storming to power in 2002 the AKP has swept every election with overwhelming majorities and maintained its strong grip on single-party government. Now, due a host of factors including a weak economy, fatigue with President Tayyip Erdoğan, corruption and disunity within AKP that tight grip is being challenged. One of the main threats is coming from the Kurdish-based People’s Democratic Party (HDP) with its charismatic, pop-star-like leader Selahattin Demirtaş. If Demirtaş can lead his party over the absurd 10% barrier to enter parliament it can pose a serious threat to AKP’s ability to rule by itself without a coalition.

The panicked response of AKP to this threat indicates that the polls showing HDP close to the 10% goal might just be accurate. Elections in Turkey have always been raucous affairs with accusations of wholesale vote rigging, threats of violence, massive demonstrations, and lots and lots of loud noise. But this one is going even further.

AKP minions, led by Erdoğan who is supposed to be above such things as president, are busy labelling the Kurdish party as:

·                     Terrorists

·                     Atheists

·                     And my favourite, ‘Zoroastrians’. For those of you whose knowledge of Zoroastrians is as limited as mine I recommend a wonderful book about remnants of ancient Middle Eastern religions called Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms by Gerard Russell. He writes that the Zoroastrian faith dominated Persia until the Islamic conquest in the 7^th century. There are only a very few Zoroastrians remaining in modern Iran, but, even so, Erdoğan now counts them as an existential threat to Turkey in the form of a Kurdish political party.

Assaults on the HDP are growing beyond verbal absurdities. So far there have more than 50 attacks on HDP election offices across the country. Yesterday there were serious bomb attacks on two HDP offices in the cities of Adana and Mersin. Two senior AKP officials condemned the attacks, and no one has claimed responsibility. And no suspects have been found.

 

Scene after bomb at HDP office in Mersin

A sign of AKP desperation is the fact that Ahmet Davutoğlu, the prime minister and official head of the party, has been almost completely side-lined. He is perceived as a weak campaigner, and Erdoğan has gladly leapt into the breach with his almost daily fire-and-brimstone speeches about the catastrophe that awaits Turkey if the AKP fails to win enough deputies to form a single-party government.

In another indication of AKP nervousness, some party stalwarts are demanding the few remaining opposition media outlets be shut down and their assets confiscated.

            Then there is the very strange incident of rumours about a possible Turkish military incursion into Syria, an incursion that could cause the elections to be postponed thereby staving off potential embarrassment for the AKP. These rumours were quickly followed by the surprise decision of the Chief of Staff of the Turkish army to take a 15-day medical leave. It is well known that the army is firmly opposed to any such Syrian adventure, and the absence of the Chief of Staff makes any move into Syria very difficult. The conspiracy theorists are having a field day with this one, but it will be quite a while before anything resembling the truth emerges.

            Even more serious are the mounting concerns about voter fraud. With the judiciary and the theoretically independent election commission firmly under government control many people are concerned that the results will mysteriously turn out to be in AKP’s favour, regardless of the actual vote. A friend in London recalled that in the last election there were more votes cast in several districts than the total number of registered voters in those districts. There are also leaked reports of massive government efforts to ‘control’ the results. Opposition parties say they will send thousands of monitors to the polling sites, but it is not clear how effective they will be.

 

Iran faced widespread protests after the flawed 2009 election

            This is where Erdoğan has to be very careful. It is one thing if HDP legitimately fails to surpass the 10% barrier. It is quite another if the party suspects that electoral fraud kept them out of parliament. Erdoğan should remember the 2009 eruption of the Green Revolution in Iran following the disputed election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Similar accusations in Turkey would go viral in a matter of moments leaving the so-called Kurdish ‘peace process’ in tatters. 

Erdoğan may or may not like the results of this election, But one hopes he realizes that nothing would improve Turkey’s democratic standing in this troubled region more than letting the results, whatever they may be, unfold without interference.