Post Turkish Referendum Analysis: Its not Yet Game Over*

Haaretz: "It's too early to declare the Turkish Republic dead and buried. The president's popularity has maxed out at 50 percent of the population, and the anti-Erdogan opposition won't be silenced"

Walking the streets of Istanbul just a week before the country’s fateful referendum, from any and every point I could see the larger-than-life faces of the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or his Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, trying to convince voters to get out and vote “Yes,” for a ‘better’ Turkey. That entirely disproportionate number of “Yes” campaign posters filled the streets of even overwhelmingly anti-AKP neighborhoods; even there very few posters could be seen pushing a “No” vote.  

Nevertheless, I sensed hope among many “No,” voters, who believed that in the end, it was the Turkish people who would decide the fate of the referendum and not posters. Further, what might have appeared to some as a lack of organization among the “No” camp, was actually a strategy; the secular-CHP, the smaller, mostly Kurdish, HDP, and other fringe parties and civil organizations, maintained a significant measure of autonomy, presenting their case to their own constituencies, in place of opting for a unified campaign. Solidifying each voting bloc rather than attempting a one-size fits all campaign.

But it wasn’t only the Yes vote takeover of the public space that constituted an unfair playing field. The whole  referendum process itself took place under a State of Emergency. While the government had a free hand to do what it wanted, some of the strongest voices in the “No” camp were severely constrained: some are sitting in prison, such as the co-chairs of the HDP party, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, together with government critics, not least a slew of journalists, such as Ahmet Sik and Kadri Gursel. 

While the Turkish government claimed foul play in Europe, when some European leaders blocked Turkish officials from campaigning on European soil, ‘No’ campaigners ironically faced bans within Turkey itself. The Ankara rally of Meral Aksener, the rising voice among Turkey’s nationalists, was cancelled by the local authorities unwilling to provide her security. Aksener was not just aiming her opposition at Erdogan, but also her former party head, the nationalist MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli, who repelled many party members with his support for Erdogan, seen as a desperate tactical attempt to hold on to power.  

Another ‘No’ campaigner, Tuna Beklevic, was prevented from holding rallies on the grounds that his party hadn’t been officially recognized, despite fulfilling all the requirements. Beklevic persevered, visiting numerous cities and using Facebook to hold a virtual rally which attracted almost 70,000 viewers.

Well, the government ended up with a huge surprise last Sunday when - despite some polls predicting an easy victory for them - the opposite occurred. The “No” camp gave Erdogan, and his weak nationalist ally, Devlet Bahceli, a run for their money, with Turkey’s three major cities, Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir (and many other urban centers) going to the “No” camp. Even if the “Yes,” camp won on bare numbers, the outcome of 51.41 percent to 48.59 percent was achieved only among serious concerns of mass voter fraud.

Since the referendum results were released, protesters have taken to the streets across Turkey demanding the Supreme Election Council explain its last minute acceptance of over a million “non-stamped ballots,” and address a long list of documented irregularities. However, the Council has flatly rejected their call, strengthening fears that it too has all but become a government mouthpiece. Unfortunately, the “No” camp has little power to enforce its demands and its attempts to bring it to the Constitutional Court will have a slim chance at best to produce results. However, its persistence stains the legitimacy Erdogan so longs for.  

So where from here? Some analysts have gone so far as to declare the end of the Turkish Republic, reiterating much of their pre-referendum coverage, which characterized the vote as a zero-sum game of dictatorship versus democracy.  

This dichotomy ignores the fact that even if the “No” camp had won the referendum, under the current State of Emergency, Erdogan and his AKP party which has a strong grip over Turkey’s bureaucracy and government offices, would continue to rule solely (and oppressively if they choose to do so) with or without a referendum victory.  

This dichotomy is also problematic due to the fact it transforms the AKP supporters into one unified group, and that their voting “Yes” is a confirmation of their support for a full-blown dictatorship. Admittedly, there are strong political and security arguments why someone might support the constitutional changes. However, in the current political atmosphere, the vote could only polarize the electorate.

On the flip side, this dichotomy robs the multiple oppositions of any agency whatsoever, as if their strong resistance to Erdogan is completely inept and that they are doomed to live under a fascist dictatorship, in which the only hope for them is leaving their homeland.

So, no, it is not game-over for those who oppose Erdogan. Yesterday’s Erdogan is no different than today’s Erdogan, save for the fact that he has received a strong message that, at least for now, his popularity has dwindled and that his popularity has maxed out at not much more than 50 percent of the population. This is not likely to change in the near future, and if Erdogan does make note of the dynamic changes within the Turkish electorate, he might even lose his bid for presidency in the 2019 elections, never having the chance to rule with super-presidential powers accorded to him in the referendum.

For the opposition, the arrests of protesters taking part in post-referendum protests, with one even being charged with “delegitimizing the “Yes” victory", the referendum is not a turning point but rather a continuation of “more of the same.” The victory of capturing Istanbul, where almost 25 percent of the overall Turkish population resides, together with the belief that the vote was stolen, has emboldened them for now, showing that they are very much alive. True, this most likely will not continue, in which case, silent resistance to Erdogan’s power will return, as the risk of arrest outweighs the urge to take to the streets.

Like Erdogan, who needs to reassess his base, the opposition groups need to as well. Will Meral Aksener be able to form a successful party that will replace Bahceli’s MHP, providing a new path for the nationalist opposition? Will a center-right party emerge from former AKP members challenging Erdogan? Will the secular CHP be able to reach out to new groups, create fronts, which will be able to break their normal 25-27 percent of the overall vote in parliamentary elections? Will these parties create a dynamic where the mostly Kurdish leftist HDP can remain a relevant party in light of the mass arrests that have taken place during the last almost two years? These questions are just a few of many pressing questions that could prove a challenge to Erdogan and his AKP party in the future. 

It is for these reasons that the referendum victory of the AKP should not be seen as a turning point but rather a continuation of the standoff between Erdogan’s AKP and different oppositional forces, one that unfortunately promises more instability, a continued sluggish economy, and frustration among those who do not see eye-to-eye with Erdogan and his hard-core supporters.

Nevertheless, one only need to look at Turkey’s shaky history to understand that just as its jails have revolving doors, new political systems, such as the post-referendum constitutional changes, can also be discarded over time. While many can predict what Turkey might look like in two years, what it might look like in a decade is still very unclear. While the path and determination of Erdogan is clear, the opposition could splinter further while the jockeying continues for its leadership, which may result in a force weakened even further and incapable of any real challenge to the newly empowered president.

This article appeared in Haaretz on April 24, 2017, under the longer title of: Wounded but Alive: It's Not Yet Game Over for Turkey's Democracy - or Its Resistance. Click here for the link. 




























*Wounded but Alive: It's Not Yet Game Over for Turkey's Democracy - or Its Resistance

Turkey’s Opposition Fails a Critical Test: To Challenge Erdogan*

Two months have passed since the July 15 Turkish coup attempt and the purge and arrests have continued unabated, with emergency laws striking at not just those accused of plotting the coup, the Gulenists, but also those with suspected ties to the outlawed Kurdish separatist group, the PKK, as well as a swathe of other staunch critics of the government. In some extreme cases, even family members of those suspected of sedition have been detained, as vicarious punishment and to leverage the surrender of suspects in exile or hiding.

Turkey's media: Under lock and key

For example, the world-renowned author Asli Erdogan is being held on terror charges for her work at the banned newspaper, Ozgur Gundem, which the government claims is a PKK mouthpiece. There are fears she may suffer permanent injury due to the conditions under which she is being held.

Similarly, singer Atilla Tas − whose criticism of the nation’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has made him more popular as a symbol than as a musician − also has been arrested. He released a defiant comment from prison: "My conscience is clear because I am innocent. My only crime was to criticize the government. I will not be subdued.” 

Then there is the journalist Can Dundar, former editor-in-chief of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, Turkey's oldest and staunchly secular broadsheet, who fled the country and vows to remain abroad as long as the state of emergency is in effect. His wife had her passport confiscated, a violation of her civil rights, effectively blocking them from seeing one another. It's worth noting that even before the coup and subsequent purge, Turkey's press was rated as “not free” by the Freedom in the World's 2016 report, while the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters without Borders ranked it low down, at 151st among 180 countries surveyed.

Post-coup bonus: Purge the Kurds

Having already seized private businesses with assets worth billions of dollars linked to Gulenists, the Turkish government has now moved on to seizing control of municipalities. Last week, democratically-elected representatives were removed from 24 local governments for their alleged ties to the PKK, and four more for their links to the Gulen movement, with state appointees taking the reins.

Along similar lines, the arrest on terror charges of the charismatic politician Selahattin Demirtas together with other leaders of the mostly-Kurdish HDP, the third-largest party in parliament, seem almost inevitable in the current environment. The latest moves against the HDP will only make the situation more precarious in the mostly Kurdish southeast, signaling greater potential bloodshed and unrest there. 

The purge of both Gulenists and activists working for the Kurdish cause (including both Kurds and Turks), should not come as a surprise, since sanctions against them had already begun before the night the coup plotters tried to hijack the country’s democracy with commandeered F-16s and tanks. 

However, the sheer numbers of those purged in the post-coup attempt are testament to its gravity: over 40,000 people have been detained or arrested, and almost 80,000 suspended from their employment. Most recently, in addition to the thousands of educators purged for ties to the Gulenists, over ten thousand teachers with alleged ties to the PKK have been removed from classrooms in Turkey.      

Turkey's opposition fails crucial test

Unfortunately, following the coup attempt the nation’s major opposition party, the CHP, failed the test of working to keep the government in check. Only in the last few weeks have the party members begun to raise their voices against the injustices of the current purge. Last week, its leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, declared that a “witch hunt” was underway: “Those who prevent writers, journalists and intellectuals from celebrating Eid al-Adha with their loved ones have no right to talk about democracy….” The CHP states it has already received 30,000 complaints by citizens of unfair treatment.

So what happened? It seems that immediately following the coup attempt the CHP party was caught off guard, unable to dictate a clear response, adopting instead the positions articulated by CHP-aligned critics of the government in the mainstream media. Even during the first hours following the coup, numerous analysts from their camp were convinced of a Gulenist plot, and ditched more critically-oriented investigative reporting to join the government chorus panning the apparently inadequate Western coverage of the coup. They accused the Western media of not showing solidarity with Turkey. While the unifying of government and opposition voices helped encourage an important sense of national unity, it left the opposition void of any vision for the future. 

This knee-jerk reaction was fed by these journalists’ disdain for the Gulenists due to bad blood between the secular camp and the Gulen movement, which even predates the falling out between the AKP and the Gulenists during the last three years. A few years earlier, military officers, journalists, and CHP lawmakers were wrongly tried on trumped up charges during the Ergenekon trials. Those falsely accused blamed Gulenists for masterminding the proceedings, and they blasted journalists at Gulen-owned media outlets for either remaining silent or even cheering the arrests of journalists. 

In their anti-Gulenist fervor following the coup, it seems that many analysts within the CHP camp, the only substantial and still legitimate opposition voice in Turkey, didn't stop to ask whether they were in dereliction of their democratic duty by not digging into the intricacies of the coup and to investigate the mass arrests of people who appear guilty of nothing more than association. 

Too little, too late

The opposition's lack of strategy was made further evident by the fickleness of its party leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who first turned down an invitation made by Turkey’s powerful president to join in July's truly massive National Unity rally; Kilicdaroglu later reversed course and accepted, despite the purge already being in full swing. This massive rally brought millions to the rally site of Yenikapi, and despite the fact that Kilicdaroglu did use the stage to mark a middle road, his performance was blurred by its weak contrast to Erdogan, who stood firm as the unchallenged President of the Republic.

As the voices of opposition have grown stronger among the CHP, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has promised that crisis desks will be set up in order to work with people wrongly accused in the purge, a problem that also Erdogan has recognized. However, Yildirim has also discarded the claim by the CHP that the decree laws set out by the state of emergency are unconstitutional, leaving the opposition little hope that they will be able to stop the purges' proliferation. In other words, the CHP’s challenge to the decree of a national state of emergency was far overdue.  

The failed coup attempt offered Turkey’s government the chance to turn over a new leaf; to show a clear legal and moral intention to distinguish, by means of a transparent and fair process, between the Gulenists (and perhaps other factions) in the army and civil arena who were actively behind the coup and those many thousands, or tens of thousands, who were swept up with them. 

The CHP’s inability to seize the moment and strongly condemn the arbitrary extent and nature of the purges from the start was a critical failure, and one that serves to undermine its integrity and sustainability as an opposition force. Despite tentative but welcome signs from the CHP towards highlighting the exponential injustices of Turkey's ongoing purge, it still seems like a classic case of acting too little, too late. 

**This article appeared in Haaretz on September 20, 2016. Click here to link

Davutoglu’s Juggling Act: Can Turkey’s Re-elected PM Offer a More Moderate Future?*

This week, Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s interim prime minister and the head of the religiously conservative Justice and Development Party (the AK Party), scored an astounding victory at the polls, sweeping almost 50 percent of the vote. 

Few could have imagined that the not-so-charismatic professor turned politician would be able to salvage his party from its poor standing in the June election, when his party received 40.7 percent of the vote, ending the party’s three term, 13-year, sole-rule of the country.  

As for the three other parties, the mostly secular main opposition party, the People’s Republican Party (CHP) faired about the same as it did in June, receiving about 25 percent of the vote. 
The real story of the night, however, was the sharp drop in support for the National Action Party (MHP), which fell over 4 points, coming in with only about 12 percent of the vote. The mostly Kurdish leftist party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (or HDP), which in June shocked all by crossing the ten-percent threshold with 13.7 percent of the vote, this time barely crossed it, with just under 11 percent of the vote. Needless to say, the election results came as a major blow to those voters of the CHP and the HDP, in addition to independent citizens, worried about Turkey’s future as a democracy. 

Furthermore, the initial shock was compounded by the failure of the vast majority of polls to predict that the AKP would repeat its election victory of 2011; the slight upward turn in the pre-election polls turned out to be a major understatement. Indeed, for many in the opposition, the election results were literally a slap in the face. So what happened? How is it that within five months the country’s politics have returned to a very similar place to where it was last June, with both the AKP and CHP having almost the same number of seats in the parliament that they had had before? 

First and foremost, credit for this "regressive triumph" must go to Davutoglu, who led a focused campaign, and understood that Erdogan’s intense campaigning in the months leading up to the previous, June elections did more harm than good. Erdogan then had deliberately overshadowed Davutoglu, undermining his role, and in his usual polarizing way, created a great deal of unnecessary controversy. 

This second round of elections was in effect forced on Davutoglu by Erdogan. After the last elections, which didn't produce the supermajority that the AKP sought, Erdogan pressured the prime minister not to enter a coalition government with the CHP, forcing Davutoglu to take his chances with a new popularity test at the polls. 

But it is Davutoglu who has now created an important balance between the two leaders. On the one hand, Davutoglu provided Erdogan with his due respect as the “leader,” by never short-changing or challenging Erdogan’s quest for extended presidential powers; in return, Erdogan remained “presidential” and more or less above party politics. This agreement seems to have been reached this September, at the AKP convention, when more and more disgruntled voices were emerged in the party, growing impatient with Erdogan’s often irrational behavior.  

The AKP’s gain can also be attributed to the other parties’ lack of ability in retaining their votes or gaining more electoral traction. Firstly, the AKP successfully pulled votes away from the MHP through its message that the AKP held the key to stability, as fighting between the PKK and the Turkish security forces entered a dangerous new round following the collapse of the peace process. Further, the poor political maneuvering of the MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli, was edged out by the AKP’s hyped-up nationalist rhetoric.  

As for the CHP, even if Kemal Kilicdaroglu, its leader, has consolidated the party’s powerbase, he has not been able to transform the party into one that embraces more conservative voices: He is not much of a coalition-builder and is not a particularly charismatic leader, whose 25 percent seems to be an election ceiling for the party 

The Kurdish-associated HDP, and the other opposition parties for that fact, can breathe a sigh of relief that it was able to cross the threshold for a second time; if it had not, the AKP could easily have reached the 367 seats needed to allot new powers to Erdogan, which would have set the stage for Turkey’s descent into a more authoritarian state than it has already become. 

However, the HDP's image has been badly dented. The HDP was able to create a special dynamic of change and hope for the Kurdish issue in the lead-up to the June elections, but afterwards, once the peace process began to break down, its inability to persuade the outlawed Kurdish Worker’s Party (the PKK) to halt its violence highlighted a major weakness of the party, which led more conservative Kurdish voters to return back to the ranks of the AKP.

At the same time, the attacks against HDP offices and affiliated businesses, even as the police turned a blind eye, coupled with the rampant state of violence in the majority-Kurdish cities, which have been subjected to extended curfews, did not provide the HDP with a chance to relive its impressive pre-June campaign, as it was preoccupied with the daily struggles of its constituency, not to mention the two ISIS-led suicide attacks on HDP-affiliated political gatherings.  

While it is too early to understand the greater trends of these elections, it is clear that the AKP’s winning 317 seats in parliament (a number that is subject to change with later electoral adjustments) returns the party to a very similar bind to the one it was in before. It is still short of the 330 seats needed to bring constitutional changes via a referendum, or the much higher 367 needed for the party to pass constitutional changes without putting them to a popular vote. 

In other words, this election was no more of a landslide victory than past AKP wins. However, only time will be able to answer the pressing question of whether Davutoglu will be able to balance the various factions in parliament and create a new atmosphere of change. He has shown some talent for difficult juggling acts – not least, he has just managed Erdogan's pressures on him and with the electoral need to minimize Erdogan's presence in the election campaign. 

With the increasing polarization of the electorate, the continued clamp-down on the press and personal freedoms, the timing for change could not better. 

*This article appeared in Haaretz on November 3, 2015. Click here for article 

Bombings, Bans and the Ballot-box Turkey on Edge*

No words can express the tragedy that hit Turkey last Saturday, when over 100 people were killed and hundreds more injured following a twin suicide-bomb attack at a peace rally in the capital Ankara. The rally was sponsored by labor unions, heavily attended by the mostly Kurdish left HDP party, and joined by a symbolic representation from the main opposition party, the CHP.

Just hours after the attack, the Turkish government declared an official three-day mourning period in recognition of the nation’s largest terrorist attack ever. The finger of blame is increasingly being pointed at Islamic State, or ISIS, sympathizers. However, rather than uniting Turkey, the bombing only has strengthened existing divisions.  

After the initial shock of the sheer scope of the bombing, anger was the reaction of many to the bombing - directed at the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the religiously conservative AKP interim-election government, led by the Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. For many Turkish citizens it was no surprise that such an attack had happened to begin with.  

Over the course of the last few months, the mostly Kurdish HDP has been the target of violent attacks, including a deadly bomb attack at their election rally just two days before the June 7 parliamentary elections, and an ISIS linked-suicide attack targeting a socialist youth group affiliated with the HDP on July 20, killing 33. These major security breaches made it clear to all that another attack was highly likely. Last month, HDP offices around Turkey were vandalized and burnt to the ground in racist attacks, with the police remaining largely indifferent.

Of course, things soured for Erdogan’s AKP following those June elections, when it lost its parliamentary majority, and the HDP crossed the 10% voter threshold. This lead to political deadlock, since the AKP was not able to form either a coalition with the main opposition CHP, or a narrow government with the nationalist MHP, leading the country to snap-elections to be held on November 1.

Both Erdogan and Davutoglu have done their utmost to delegitimize the HDP, a campaign that began even before the June general elections, once it was clear that the HDP would not support Erdogan’s quest to allocate further extensive powers to the presidency that he holds. Following the elections, the embryonic peace process facilitated by Kurdish MPs between the outlawed Kurdish separatist movement, the PKK, and the Turkish state collapsed, both sides now fully immersed in fighting each other.  

Following the Ankara attack, HDP’s head, Selahattin Demirtas, lashed out at the government claiming not only was it delinquent in preventing the bombing but that members of the state institutions were also complicit in the attack. No evidence was provided, but for some in Turkey such a damning accusation didn’t seem so far from an obvious truth; many others believe that Ankara has consistently turned a blind eye to ISIS sympathizers, with fatal results.

While the AKP denies these claims as completely preposterous, Turkey’s long history of its intelligence services working within its own autonomous and unaccountable set of rules fuels such claims. Indeed, on Wednesday an Ankara court upheld the government’s request for a complete media blackout on the bombing (covering “all kinds of news, interviews, criticism and similar publications in print, visual, social media and all kinds of Internet media”) only heightening the suspicion that few details will ever come to light. The ban came into effect just as reports that the suicide bombers had been identified; both were known to the  police and intelligence services, one suspect's brother is said to have committed a suicide bombing blamed on ISIS only three months earlier 

The fear that the full account of the attack will never come to light is hardly unfounded in recent Turkish history: in the past, when the media was banned from reporting on specific events, such as the 2011 Uludere affair (34 Kurdish civilians mistakenly believed to be PKK terrorists killed in an airstrike), or the 2014 alleged transfer of Turkish arms to Islamist radical groups in Syria, perhaps even to ISIS, the censorship seemed to have been aimed at covering up government complicity, with the benefit of a complete lack of transparency.

The media ban is the latest expression of an accelerating clampdown on a free press in Turkey. Just a day before the bombing the editor of the English-language newspaper Todays Zaman, Bulent Kenes, was arrested on live television for allegedly “insulting” Erdogan, while two other journalists joined a long list of other citizens found guilty of insulting Erdogan. Fortunately this week Kenes was released but still faces prison if found guilty.

Sadly, the Ankara bombing victims make up just part of Turkey’s rampant death toll during the last few months. Since the June elections, over 600 Turkish citizens have been killed, whether in terrorist attacks, or Turkish security forces by the PKK, or in operations carried out by the Turkish army in the southeast of the country which is under partial military curfew, or PKK fighters (who are also Turkish citizens) killed by the army. Indeed, during the elections Erdogan insisted that only an absolute AKP majority would ensure Turkey’s “peaceful” transition to a new presidential system, leaving many to believe that he was actually threatening the electorate, and that things could get messy if it did not give the AKP a clear majority. Regardless of what he actually meant, his prediction seems to have been right on.

The AKP has radically failed on numerous fronts. If it had not been for the main opposition CHP leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, whose leadership bridges the country’s dangerous political polarization, and the determination of the opposition parties, Turkey could have very well have run off the rails of democracy by now. However, a culture of fear is consolidating in Turkey, and its effects will reverberate not only over the coming fortnight preceding the general elections, but in the weeks and months following it as well.

This week, Turkey’s national football team took on Iceland in the conservative city of Konya, an AKP stronghold. Jeers and whistles marred the moment of silence for those killed in Ankara. The lessons of the bombing have clearly still not been learnt.

*This article appeared in Haaretz on 15 October 2015, please click here for article.

Turkey's Snap Election: One Month to go (Turkey November 2015 election, part 1)

Turkish Snap Elections 2015: An Intro

In exactly one month, on November 1, Turkish voters will return to a new round of elections, following the failure of the religious conservative AKP to form a coalition government with the secular-orientated CHP, the nationalist MHP, or the mostly-Kurdish leftist HDP. It seemed clear from the past that this was an impossible feat, with the three other parties staunchly opposing AKP’s plan to transfer new powers to the nation’s president (and its former party leader and prime minister), Recep Tayyip Erdogan, essentially creating a “super-presidency.”

The fact that the AKP was not able to form a government was no surprise; in fact the only surprising part of the whole election was the party’s dwindling show at the ballot box, receiving just over 40% of the vote, down almost 9% from the 2011 vote. This of course was caused when the HDP crossed the 10% parliamentary threshold—a remnant of the 1980 Coup—and one that was kept in place by the AKP despite 13 years of single-party rule and promises to rid the country of the remnants of the coup.  

For my analysis of the June elections, please click link

Since the election however Turkey has seen some of its bleakest days in over a decade, once again locked in conflict with the PKK, with the Turkish security forces taking heavy blows. Let us remember that the peace process with the Kurds entitled the AKP and Erdogan continued support; however, as I stated recently in an article in Haaretz (related to the AKP’s Grand Congress):

“the days of hope have been buried with the widespread belief that Erdogan instigated the renewed violence in order to delegitimize the HDP and ensure the AKP’`s stability and electoral support. The question of whether the lives of soldiers, policemen and innocent civilians could have been spared by doing its utmost to keep the peace process on track will forever loom over the AKP.”

Therefore, placing aside whether Erdogan bears some responsiblity for the violence, the quick unravelling of the peace process, the growing number of dead (from among civilians and security forces), and the subjecting of large parts of the population to military curfews, is ample proof that the AKP’s peace process was wrongly mapped out from the start, and despite the best of intentions of many involved, it has turned into a massive failure. 

Nevertheless, even if a failure, on the flip side, the AKP can be credited with placing the process on the daily agenda and thus paving the way for a possible future deal.  

Now to the elections….

So the question is how do you hold elections in this terrible state of violence and turbulent times? Well, the answer is, the show must go on. And, based on most polls, the Turkish electorate is not about to change their vote, with almost all showing a similar outcome to the previous June 7 elections with Turkey most likely witnessing the fact that the days of AKP’s sole rule is over.

Over the next month, I will be covering different aspects of the election, recapping major points leading up to the vote, and highlighting each points related to each party and its leadership, so stay tuned!

Did someone say elections in Turkey? (Turkey Local Election coverage 2014, 1)*

At the end of March 2014, Turkey will once again head to the polls to vote in mayors for the country’s municipalities, marking five years since the previous ones, and almost three years since the 2011 national elections. While local elections do not always serve as an indicator for the general public’s confidence in a ruling party, there is no doubt that the upcoming elections in Turkey is quickly turning into a referendum for the ruling AK Party, which received almost fifty percent of the vote in the last national elections.  

Actually, it is not the opposition parties that are treating this as a referendum, who obviously know the stakes are high; rather, it is Turkey’s strong Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is pushing this stance. We have to remember that Erdogan is at his best during elections, and during the past few weeks he has been campaigning “full-steam ahead.” 

Ever since the Gezi Park protests, in fact, Erdogan has been on a non-stop campaign challenging his opponents, or anyone who has the potential to challenge his hegemony, one-by-one. Most recently, in an attempt to consolidate power within his own party, the Turkish prime minister opened a front against the Gülen movement, or what is known in Turkish as the Hizmet (Service) movement, or the Cemaat (the Society). However, it is still premature to see how the unfolding row will play out in the upcoming local elections. Clearly, the twitter wars between the two camps has showed us just how messy Turkish politics can become.  

What is clear is that Erdogan’s constant divisive “powerhouse” politics will most likely lead to a decline in his support, something I already claimed just two weeks before the Gezi protests. However, let us not lose sight, local elections can be misleading; it is important to remember that Erdoğan also treated the 2009 elections as a referendum and despite the opposition parties gaining some ground, just two years later, in the national elections, he swept the ballots, getting almost 50% of the general vote (see my former blogs on 2009 local election, and 2011 national elections). 

The key to any true success on behalf of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), will depend greatly on how dynamic their candidates are, and the party’s ability to open the door to communities they have shunned in this past. In Istanbul, and the other major cities, utilizing the space the Gezi Park protests created without exploiting it will be central; in other words, the party will need to capture the overall population’s imagination, heightening spirits that change is possible. 

During the next 3.5 months, I will be covering different aspects of the elections and focusing on how other parties, such as the newly formed Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) and how its candidate for Istanbul, the Gezi protester and MP, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, will influence the race. On the same token, I will be watching if CHP’s choice of Mustafa Sarıgul to run for mayor in Istanbul was a good or bad one (he will officially open his campaign this Thursday). Further, I will give a rundown of the other cities and regions, looking at which parties are most likely to make gains, or hold ground, such as the Peace and Democratic Party (BDP) in the southeastern Kurdish regions, and the National Action Party (MHP), in the western regions and some cities in the interior.  Indeed, this election should be an exciting one! 

*The coverage will be indexed as seen above in title

FOLLOW ME on TWITTER @istanbultelaviv for more on whats happening in Turkey and Israel/Palestine, and the Middle East at large. Contact: louisfishman@gmail.com

A Hunger Strike:An Opposition behind Bars

During the last 53 days, many things have happened in Turkey and the world. For me, I started the university semester and I cannot believe that next week midterms will begin.  Summer ended, lasting extra long, and finally it is getting quite chilly outside. A film about Muslims sparked outrage. More recently, a hurricane named Sandy battered the East coast. I could go on and delve into different news stories. However, one thing we perhaps missed was that in Turkey, for the last 53 days, almost 700 Kurdish prisoners in Turkish jails have gone on a hunger strike (starting on different dates). They are demanding their right as Turkish citizens to study in their mother tongue , have the right to speak Kurdish in courts (with a translator), and want an end to the solitary confinement of the outlawed Kurdish PKK’s leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Kurds in Turkey's western city of Adana protest in the name of the hunger strikers

Those following the Turkish news, or my blog during the last almost four years, will know that Turkey has for over thirty years been subjected to an ongoing armed uprising of its Kurdish population in Turkey’s southeastern regions. During these years, over 40,000 Turkish citizens have been killed (on both sides) and throughout the 1990’s Turkey offered no negotiations, and sought out a military solution. The Kurdish organization, the PKK, recognized by most of the western world as a terrorist organization, has no chance of winning their armed struggle, but they also inflict great challenges on the Turkish military, and this year alone, there has been almost 100 security personnel killed. 

While the armed struggle is led by the outlawed PKK, with their leader, Abdullah Ocalan, being jailed on an island prison not far from Istanbul, the civil branch of the Kurdish struggle is played out through a political party, the Peace and Democratic Party (BDP). This party is in the Turkish parliament and the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is currently in the process of trying to strip some of the BDP members of their parliamentary status due to an event where the MPs took photos embracing PKK guerrillas.  Erdogan, who for the first part of his ten-year tenure worked to reach an agreement with the Kurds, more recently has switched to a zero-tolerance policy towards their demands.

During the last few months, as a result of the growing rift between the Turkish state and the Kurds, we have seen an increase in the violent clashes between the Turkish military and the PKK fighters.  On the civilian front, thousands of Kurds have been jailed (along with their Turkish allies), including academics, writers, journalists, and elected officials (mayors to MPs). Many are held months and years without trial, and often charged on anti-terrorist laws, which the United Nations Human Rights Committee recently criticized as "incompatible with international law," and implenting "unacceptable restrictions on the right of due process for accused people."

It is this atmosphere that Kurdish prisoners sought out to become active in their opposition; where they are silenced in jail, a massive hunger strike has awoken both Kurds and Turks (both Turkish citizens) to the ongoing Kurdish plight.  The Turkish government once again is showing that it is losing its grip over the society at large (see last week’s blog on Republican Day march), with the PM Erdogan ridiculing the BDP leaders as ones that feast at huge banquets, while their counterparts are on a hunger strike; he was basing his claims on a picture of the leaders at a feast, which was taken two months before the strike. On an official state visit to Germany, Erdogan, standing next to German PM Merkel, even went so far as to call the strike a political “show,” claiming that only one person is really on a hunger strike.  

Well, as Erdogan tries to brush off the strike, during the last two weeks, the mainstream Turkish media has been covering events on a daily basis. Massive demonstrations have been held in Turkey’s southeastern cities, such as Diyarbakir and Van, and in some western cities with large Kurdish populations, such as Adana.  A general strike was observed throughout most of the southeast last Tuesday with shopkeepers closing their shutters and children refusing to go to school.  There is no question that the Kurdish question just in a matter of a few months has managed to bring a huge split in the society, with Kurds and Turks reaching a dangerous divide.    

Turkey, almost a decade ago witnessed a prison “death strike,” held by a Turkish radical left movement with some dying; however, their support was limited, not like the Kurdish hunger strikers. Last year, the BDP member and MP Sebahat Tuncel, who herself might find herself behind bars due to an ongoing court case, wrote an article, which appeared in the NY Times. It was an op-ed which talked about that the Kurds in Turkey also might have their own “Arab Spring.” If the government does not act soon, and strikers start to die one by one, the Turkish government could be faced with a backlash that it has not seen until now, giving impetus to Tuncel’s words. Further, with the Turkish society polarized at the seams, such a scenario could lead to a general consensus that Erdogan, the invincible leader, might just not make it through the storm. 

===================================

FOLLOW ME on TWITTER @istanbultelaviv for more stories on whats happening in Turkey and Israel/Palestine, the uprising in Syria, and the Middle East at large.  

  

The Republican March in Ankara: Crossing the Threshold

Onlookers watch military band in Taksim, commemorating
89th year of the founding of the Republic with police in background

For Turkey, this last week could have been remembered as a nice combination of religion and state. The Muslim Kurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha) fell right before the state holiday commemorating the founding of the Republic. With Turkey’s secular and religious politicians polarized, there was a chance that both groups could celebrate the two important days in unison.  However, once news came out last week that Ankara’s governor banned the Republican Day’s October 29th annual march things began to heat up. Today, defying the AK party’s banning of the march, Turkey’s secular elite marched, and what ensued was an show of force by the Turkish police, who were trying to uphold the government’s orders.

Here is a link to a video showing the violent protests in Ankara, featured in Radikal.

Since coming to power, almost a decade ago, the AKP party, led by Prime Minister Erdogan, who can easily be defined as one of Turkey’s most influential leaders ever, has worked to curb the state’s secular institutions, which were historically guarded by the Turkish army. For the conservative secular elite, early on they accused the AKP as leading an Islamic revolution; claims that were exorbitant and baseless, but nevertheless, an expected reaction from a group whose influence was being cropped at the stem.  

Headquarters of the Youth Wing of the Secular People Republican Party

The competition of these two groups has touched upon the lives of meaning average Turkish citizens. For example, before the AKP, women were not allowed to wear the Islamic headscarf in universities, which the secular elite defined as a definitive way to block the influence of Islam into the public sphere. Let it be known, that with the Turkish society over 99 percent Muslim, the average citizen really never supported the headscarf ban (one that continues in public offices until today) and were perhaps even relieved when the AKP started allowing all women to study in universities. 

Another form of competition has been how each group defines Turkey’s history, the Republic itself, and how its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is memorialized. The AKP, while not banning the official republican days, has downgraded them, treating them to some extent as products of a secular republic which for years oppressed them. Erdogan has clearly maneuvered through these days, participating in them and respecting them; but not commemorating them with past zeal of the former secularists.  The AKP’s stance on the official Republican days also does not seem to represent the average Turkish citizen, who sees the national holidays as an integral part of their daily lives. 

It is for this reason that banning of the Republic Day March in Ankara, the capital of the Republic, should be seen as crossing a dangerous threshold.  The governor’s claim that it was cancelled due to security reasons was seen as a provocation, and once Erdogan publicly supported this move, the Republic People’s Party (CHP) leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, called the masses to join him at the march. What ensued was a scene that is becoming more and more common in Turkey: a police force utilizing massive force against civilians protesting in a completely peaceful manner; civilians, young and old, having their faces covered with pepper spray, with water cannons throwing people to the ground, and massive clouds of teargas hovering over. And, it was just not civilians; Kilicdaroglu and other parliament members were also among the masses inhaling the teargas.    

Today’s events should be worrying to the government since it is another sign that the polarization between the two camps is widening, and as was the case today, can turn violent. Further, the AKP, as a result, seems to losing a grip on their massive constituency, who many do not identify with their political agenda but rather have been happy with their economic policies. Furthermore, the government would be wise to investigate how such an important day for so many of its citizens could end so badly. Perhaps, only then, can the two sides start to work together to reach common ground and understanding.