Good will hunting

It was numbingly cold in Siirt district, Turkey when one morning in December 1997 a man in a blue shirt and smart formals came out at the public square to recite a poem. The man was no commoner. The Istanbul mayor was disturbed at the authoritarian nature of Kemalist politics that had, among other things, clamped a ban on his party. It was accused of ‘threatening the Kemalist nature of Turkey.’ The mayor, now without a party to call his own, took the dais and recited “the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers...” All hell broke loose. Four months later, after serving a prison term, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan decided that enough was enough. A political charisma started taking shape.

It is almost 14 years since that fateful day. ErdoÄŸan and his wife step atop the large balcony of an even larger AK Party headquarters in Ankara as hundreds of thousands of supporters wave the Red banner with the New Moon and a Lone Star. A few kilometres away, at the office of Kemalist CHP, there is death-like silence. Fate has a way at getting back at you. The revenge of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan is complete.

So what has led to this immense popularity of the man and his party that were about to be banned just a couple of years back? And how has he managed to amalgamate a rainbow of social and political groups to form a party that can claim to be all-embracing after all. Explains Taha Akyol, an analyst with Milliyet newspaper, “There are two basic driving forces. AK has carried along the masses that have always been at the margins of the society. The teeming masses of Anatolia connect to AK emotionally and politically. It has offered them economic opportunities and public service like healthcare, education and transportation, hitherto denied. Even the people who questioned its secular credentials have seen that it is under no threat in the last nine years and have sided with AK.” 

For starters, AKP is not just another Islamic party. True, it draws its blood and iron from the erstwhile banned Welfare Party and Virtue Party, but that is merely a part of it. The rise of AKP is a phenomenon in itself. It was started when a handful of parties with different backgrounds decided to offer Turkey an option akin to the Christian Democrats in other parts of Europe. The reformist faction of the Islamist ‘Virtue Party’ pooled in Abdullah Gul (later president) and Bülent Arınç. Social Conservative ‘Motherland Party’ brought in Abdülkadir Aksu. Turkish Democratic Party donated Hüseyin Çelik while a few Leftists donated their cadres. All of them paid allegiance to ErdoÄŸan and AK Party was formed.

It was therefore natural that contrary to what the West thinks, AK has a following among several groups and not just pious worshipping types. In the 2007 elections, it pipped pro-Kurdish ‘Democratic Society Party’ in the Kurdish bastions of Mardin and Van. In the same polls, it trounced the Kemalist Secularist CHP in the strongholds of Artvin and Antalya.

This election is no different. Denying any major upset, AK won a landslide majority and as the poll closed it had managed to bag a little more than 50 per cent of the popular vote outwitting both Centre-Left CHP and Fascist Right MHP who bagged about 25 per cent and 13 per cent of the vote respectively.

However, some of the lustre was lost as AK Party failed to get the required 330 seats to call for a referendum. It was almost 40 seats short of what was needed to reverse the unilateral change in the Constitution that was made by the army after the 1980 coup and gave enormous power to the armed forces. AK will now have to negotiate with smaller parties and independents to carry forward the amendment and give the Constitution a more civilian tilt, clipping the power of the military and the elite.

“The party has reversed the trend of anti-incumbency. It is increasing its vote share in every subsequent election. The nation has announced that it supports democracy and change. AK’s agenda for weakening the Junta and bureaucratic tutelage and a push for more active and self- confident foreign policy means that
Turkey will continue its march forward,” adds Mustafa KaraalioÄŸlu, a political expert with Star. 

As far as geographical distribution was concerned, AKP swept the Anatolian hinterland and southeast and south leaving crumbs for Kurdish independents supported by BDP who managed to save their bastion of Diyarbakir and around. In the Aegean Sea region, CHP continued to have its dominance but AKP managed to give it a scare by doing massive bloodbaths in its bastion of Izmir, Mugla and Aydin. Particularly interesting was the results in Izmir where AKP managed to reduce the gap to within 6 percent votes.

Apart from Anatolia where it draws its strength from, AKP did surprisingly well in the metropolis. It not only trounced CHP and MHP in both the seats in the capital city of Ankara, it also went on to win all the three seats in Istanbul. However, apart from Istanbul, CHP managed to win all the seats that falls on the European side of Turkey.

Reacting to the elections, analyst Deniz Ergurel said, “It is not easy to repeat such a level of performance for the third time. The best part is it has managed to increase the vote in a deeply polarised election facing the combined onslaught of the opposition.”

But what are the challenges that the new government faces as it begins a confident third term? The foremost will be to solve the Kurdish question. Nothing could have been better for the Kurdish cause than the defeat of the unbending and uncompromising CHP and Fascist MHP. AKP has a plan to solve the Kurdish problem through dialogue and it will bear fruit. It would surprise westerners who allege that AK has a hidden Islamist agenda to know that AK was the first party to allow a Kurdish language channel. Compare it with the days of CHP when singing Kurdish songs could land you in jail.

However, electoral gains made by BDP- supported Kurdish independents were a point to ErdoÄŸan to connect and engage more actively, after the collapse to follow through on his proposal to grant Kurds more cultural rights two years ago. He may not want to be seen to be bowing to pressure from Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who threatened a "big war" if the government failed to begin serious talks days after the election.

Says Ümit Fırat, the leading Kurdish intellectual and author, and an analyst at Kurdish political magazine, Serbesti, “The elections are over now. Clearly, AKP will have to come out of election mode. It has achieved a resounding victory and this time it will have to solve the issue as it will have no excuse anymore.”

Another more important issue will be to continue with the policy of clipping the powers of Junta and ‘Deep State’ forces. In spite of the promises made by CHP’s new leadership, the party has actually tried to protect people who were instrumental in coup d'état and post-modern coups.
 
A number of such suspects with ties to Ergenekon, a clandestine network of state bureaucrats, civil society figures and criminal elements that plotted a coup have won on CHP’s tickets. Of course, their admission to parliament is subjected to a verdict by the judiciary.

Journalist Mustafa Balbay, running from the CHP stronghold of Ä°zmir, narrowly won the seat. Mehmet Haberal, an academic arrested as part of the Ergenekon investigation, also managed to win on a CHP ticket from Zonguldak whereas former Erzincan chief prosecutor Ä°lhan Cihaner, a defendant, won on the CHP list from Denizli. On the other hand, Retired Gen. Engin Alan, currently facing trial for a 2003 coup plan code named Sledgehammer, won on the MHP list from Istanbul. It is now evident that CHP's new leader, Kemal KılıçdaroÄŸlu’s promise to change his party's outlook has come to naught.

“AK will do whatever it can to break this multiplicity of power centres. There should be a clear pyramid where Army and Ministry of National Security comes under the President and the PM. West opposes this move as authoritarian but all it wants is the same dual power structure that it can soft pedal on its whims,” fumes Emre Aköz, a political analyst with Sabah Daily.

On the foreign policy front, AK is expected to continue with foreign minister Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu’s policy of “zero problem with neighbours”. The Syrian crisis poses an immediate threat, and so does the next flotilla to Gaza. Polls suggest that close to 67 per cent of Turks have given the thumbs up to its foreign policy initiative, more than its overall approval ratings. Naturally, DavutoÄŸlu must have taken note of this, and so have the Americans and the Israelis.

“We have no issues whatsoever with the Americans. But they need to understand that they cannot keep propping up Israel all the time. If they want the relationship with Turkey to deteriorate because of their friendship with Israelis, no one can help. As for Turkey, it wants good ties with the west and demands respect,” Abdülhamit Bilici, an analyst and head of Cihan News Agency, asserts.

And among other things, Turkey will also continue to do whatever it takes to get integrated with EU. However, ErdoÄŸan has ensured that self-respect is not compromised. While leaders from Sarkozy to the Pope have tried to stop Turkey’s admission, there are close to two dozen countries that have ratified Turkey’s admission. ErdoÄŸan’s pro-democratic and pro-market initiatives have moved Turkey closer to its dream. However, rest assured, he will not compromise self-respect to get into what he previously described as “a Christian club.” 

Indeed, the going gets tough for ErdoÄŸan amid increased expectations. He had once famously said that he carries two shirts with him, one for the office and one for the coffin. Guess what, he will have to keep both of them crisply ironed.

(In pics: A victorious Erdogan; Ahmet Davutoglu, tipped to be foreign minister again; Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of CHP)