How the anti-Erdogan Opposition Can Win Sunday's Elections in Turkey*

Haaretz: "For years, Turkey's opposition has been fractured and defeatist while the president consolidated power. But the opposition now has a wildly popular, charismatic and sharp-tongued leader – and a lackluster Erdogan doesn't seem invincible any more."

This coming Sunday, Turkey will go to the polls to elect a new parliament and president, and, for the first time in 16 years, the political opposition is confronting the ruling AKP, and the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head on. That means for the first time, Turkish citizens are able to imagine an end to Erdogan’s rule.

The credit for lifting that important psychological barrier must go to two opposition parties: The veteran CHP, especially its presidential candidate, Muharrem Ince, and the new Iyi party, led by the nationalist-right politician, Meral Aksener.

This newfound political horizon is neutralizing the key obstacle that has plagued the opposition, especially the CHP, since the rise of Erdogan and his AKP party in 2002: The we-never-can-winsyndrome. This syndrome is characterized by the belief that no matter what happens, no matter how good the CHP might perform, it is doomed to remain the opposition forever.

The flip-side of the we-never-can-win syndrome, is the co-option of the assumption that Erdogan is electorally invincible, and that no matter how bad his rule might be, or how deep the economy sinks, overall, he has been "good" for the country. This is coupled with the belief that his authoritarian ways still reflect the will of the majority which legitimizes them – and casts a shadow of supposed delegitimacy on opponents of that creeping authoritarianism.

The we-never-can-win syndrome was a clear outcome of the 2002 elections, when the electorate punished the ruling three-party coalition for their ineptness. That election flipped Turkish politics on its head: only two parties were able to cross the 10% threshold, so the full 45% who chose other parties had their vote effectively rendered useless.

Ahead in that pack of two, with 34% of the vote, was the then-dynamic new pro-EU conservative Muslim party, the AKP, led by Erdogan, who enjoyed support not only from religious voters but also anti-military liberals and entrepreneurs. During those years, he also was the favorite of the EU and the U.S. Second was the CHP, then led by Deniz Baykal, which took 19% of the vote - a major achievement, bearing in mind it had failed to cross the percentage threshold in the previous elections.

But after that rise, the CHP plateaued. Part of that was thanks to constituencies of potential voters it had consciously excluded. Even though Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, father of modern Turkey, founded the party, it had a long history of excluding Kurds and religious Muslims, among other groups. It would take the CHP a whole decade to revamp itself, and when Kemal Kilicdaroglu was elected party leader in 2010, the party expanded its base from 20% to 25%., Yet since then it has been unable to chisel away at Erdogan’s consolidated support of 42-49% - and has fallen into its normal mode of inertia.

Certainly in the last few years, Kilicdaroglu has chalked up some successes, but until this election there was nothing in the CHP’s bag of tricks to break out of the we-never-can-win syndrome. Even worse, it seemed at times as if they were actively encouraging this defeatism.

One blatant example was Kilicdaroglu helping AKP lawmakers lift parliamentary immunity – which inevitably led to the arrest of MPs from the mostly Kurdish HDP including the party’s co-chairs. One of them, Selahattin Demirtas, is running as its presidential candidate from behind bars. This, and the unclear path Kilicdaroglu first carved out following the 2016 attempted coup, only strengthened Erdogan.

So what changed? Well, first, it can be narrowed down to two words: Muharrem Ince. The CHP candidate for president - charismatic, modest, and sharp-tongued - is packing rallies, breaks audience records when he’s interviewed on television and has turned into a social media craze. He is giving Erdogan a run for his money like never before. No politician has presented him with such a challenge.

Ironically, Erdogan’s attempted power grab, when he transformed Turkey’s political structure into a presidential system – with one vote for the presidency and one for a party - that allowed the CHP to break out of the we-never-can-win syndrome, since Ince has been able to free himself from the limiting contours of the party and to capitalize on personality politics that favor him. Not surprisingly, he has reached out to those very constituencies the CHP has historically shunned. 

Ince’s campaign has been energized by openings that Erdogan himself has provided. After 16 years, Erdogan lacks luster, and his successes are outweighed by a rapidly ailing economy. Ince’s greatest success may have been to have forced Erdogan to start playing catch up with Ince’s own policies, even at the cost of a radical shift in his political agenda – which can appear hypocritical, if not a bare expression of expediency, even desperation.

For example, Ince promised he would lift Turkey’s State of Emergency if he were to win. Somewhat astonishingly, if not improbably, Erdogan quickly followed suit. But of course, if Erdogan had wanted to lift the draconian measures introduced after the failed 2016 coup that have essentially granted him sole rule, he could have at any time -  but he chose not to.

Ince has also set Erdogan up for another unaccustomed form of humiliation – by poking fun at his promises. When Erdogan somewhat oddly promised that if he were to win he would open free coffeshops, serving Turkish citizens coffee, tea and cake - Ince literally laughed out loud. He responded at an Istanbul rally: "If you want free cake, vote for Erdogan. If you want a factory job and jobs for our children, vote for me."

Beyond the Ince factor, is the fact that the opposition has finally united in a parliamentary alliance: the CHP, together with Meral Aksener’s Iyi party, and the smaller religious conservative party, Saadet (Erdogan’s former political home), which will allow both smaller parties to sail past the electoral threshold. Between them, these three parties are maximizing their appeal to divergent sectors of the Turkish electorate, and giving it their all.

Like Ince, Aksener has remained steadfast on the campaign trail running for president. Her success is raking in support from the failed nationalist MHP party, whose leader, Devlet Bahceli, has all but bankrupted his party through his alliance with Erdogan.

Providing hope for real change, however, could only have been made possible by Ince reaching out to the Kurds, solidified by his visiting the jailed HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas, and his wife, during his visit to Diyarbakir, where he was met with much fanfare and an excited crowd.

It’s essential for the anti-Erdogan opposition that the HDP cross the electoral threshold in the parliamentary elections, and it’s essential in the all-but-certain second round of presidential elections that the HDP voters line up behind Ince as their preferred candidate. As a result, some CHP supporters have even vowed to split their vote, voting for the HDP for parliament and Ince as president.

Everyone remembers the elections of June 2015, when the HDP did cross the threshold, the AKP lost its majority – but the opposition failed to unite, and that led Erdogan to declare new elections and to run them out of town. This time, it seems that even the nationalist Iyi party has been persuaded of the necessity of a tactical understanding with the HDP, to whom they are politically antagonistic, because without that understanding, the opposition’s chance of countering the AKP in parliament is nonexistent.

   
Will the we-never-can-win syndrome become a historical relic at the ballot box this Sunday? Will the hype surrounding opposition’s darling Ince convert into solid votes? Is there a chance his popularity has been overinflated by those desperate to see Turkey return to being a free and open country, a place of optimism and hope?
The calculus of success for the opposition is simple: they need to take control of parliament, and ensure that Erdogan does not get more than 50% in the presidential race, forcing him to go to a second round.

That is when the real work will begin. For Ince, the principle opposition candidate, the task list is complicated by the fact that he must attract the support of sectors that not only don’t overlap – but are foundationally hostile to each other.

Can he bring in the pro-HDP Kurdish vote? Can he simultaneously rally the national right? Will he get the votes of the small Islamist Saadet party? It’s not only a test of Ince’s attractiveness as a candidate, and his political deftness, but also a test of just how deep and committed the opposition to Erdogan actually is. 

All eyes will be on Turkey this weekend. Despite the uncertainly about how far the opposition’s new and refreshing popularity will translate into votes, one thing is for sure: after 16 years, there’s no more we-never-can-win in Turkish politics.

No-one in the anti-Erdogan opposition expects miracles – but bearing in mind what seemed like an unstoppable trajectory towards sole-rule by Erdogan only months ago, an opposition victory at the ballot box would certainly qualify as a stunning and improbable turn of events.  

This piece was originally published in Haaretz on June 24, 2018. Please click here for the link

Occupier! Murderer! The Hypocritical War of Words on Gaza Between Israel and Turkey*

Haaretz: "The verbal volume of Erdogan’s attacks on Israel reflects genuine Turkish popular support for the Palestinians. But in a perilous election season it’s also cover for Turkey to maintain essential economic ties with Israel"

In what has become an almost scripted scene since the days of the 2010 Gaza Flotilla incident, Turkey recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv in a response to the Israeli army’s killing of almost 60 Palestinians protesting at the Gaza border. 

Within 24 hours, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also told the Israeli ambassador in Ankara and its consul general in Istanbul to leave, with Israel responding by expelling Turkey’s envoy at its Jerusalem consulate.

With the diplomatic relations between the two countries in free fall, PM Netanyahu took to Twitter to lash out at Erdogan, accusing him of supporting Hamas, and declaring that "he well understands terrorism and slaughter..." and that "he not preach morality." 

Erdogan is among Hamas's biggest supporters and there is no doubt that he well understands terrorism and slaughter. I suggest that he not preach morality to us

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) May 15, 2018

Erdogan struck the ball hard back into Netanyahu’s court, tweetingthat Israel is an apartheid state and that Netanyahu “has the blood of Palestinians on his hands,” suggesting that he take a lesson in humanity by reading the Ten Commandments. 

Netanyahu is the PM of an apartheid state that has occupied a defenseless people's lands for 60+ yrs in violation of UN resolutions.

He has the blood of Palestinians on his hands and can't cover up crimes by attacking Turkey.

Want a lesson in humanity? Read the 10 commandments.

— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) May 15, 2018

Later, in another tweet he defended Hamas, defining it as a resistance movement that "defends the Palestinian homeland against an occupying power."

Reminder to Netanyahu:

Hamas is not a terrorist organization and Palestinians are not terrorists.

It is a resistance movement that defends the Palestinian homeland against an occupying power.

The world stands in solidarity with the people of Palestine against their oppressors.

— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RT_Erdogan) May 15, 2018

Netanyahu answered back in Hebrew that Israel won’t be lectured to by the leader of a country that occupies Northern Cyprus, invades Syria and has the blood of “countless Kurds” on his hands.

The mud-slinging by Netanyahu and Erdogan is both aggressive and defensive, because both countries have a long list of human rights violations, and in this sense, Israel and Turkey are like two peas in a pod.

Perhaps the main difference is that when Israel commits crimes they are often caught on camera. With the dismal state of journalism and freedoms in Turkey, victims of Turkish state violence, often Kurdish civilians, do not make the headlines, with their stories buried within human rights organization reports. 

Both states are guilty of applying extreme violence, in the past and present, and in that sense are quite similar, even if the conflicts they are dealing with are very different in nature. However, it’s necessary to point out is that the two countries’ relations have never been based on each other’s upholding of civil and human rights. 

Israel calling out Turkey on Kurdish rights and for being an occupying power essentially confirms its own state crimes. And, while it would preposterous to claim Turkey does not care for Palestinian rights, under Erdogan’s leadership, Turkey has shown time and again that for relations to continue with Israel, it has to avoid violent outbursts, keeping it to a minimum. Turkey has never made ending the (violent) occupation as a condition for Turkish-Israeli relations.   

With elections coming up in just over a month, there are accusations that Erdogan is exploiting Palestinian suffering to bolster his unsteady campaign. But as Palestine is regarded by a not insubstantial proportion of Turks as practically a domestic issue, and a cause of genuine concern and solidarity, Erdogan’s retaliatory actions won’t go unnoticed, or unappreciated, by his constituency. 

However, the idea his determined stance on Palestine will win him the election ignores the fact that Erdogan is, out of wider geopolitical considerations, not able, even if he wished, to engage in a full-throated campaign against Israel. That leads him open to charges of mere lip-service to the Palestinian cause; his performatively noisy actions this week on the diplomatic front are a form of damage control.

Erdogan not only faces strong objections within his own camp to Turkey’s significant economic ties with Israel, but also has to weather calls by opposition forces who accuse him at every given moment of hypocrisy: he curses Israel, removes ambassadors, but never cuts economic ties. Indeed, Tuesday, Erdogan's AKP party struck down a call in parliament by the mostly Kurdish HDP to cancel all economic, military, and political agreements with Israel.

This need to actively demonstrate his identification with Palestinians while keeping ties with Israel viable is what motivates Erdogan to concrete steps in the public sphere, such as his announcement of a mass demonstration this Friday after prayers, and to declare days of national mourning, as he has also done in the past. 

Such actions allow Erdogan and his party to assert a tight grip, at least rhetorically, over the issue of Palestine. In a country where sympathy with the Palestinians is decades old and is strong enough to facilitate odd partnerships, such as between secular leftists and Islamists, Erdogan needs to keep a monopoly over the issue of Palestine. That allows him to maintain his balancing act between ongoing economic relations with Israel, and his status as being the sole leader in the Middle East (and arguably almost in the world) defending Palestinian rights.

This reality is exhibited by the fact that unlike Arab states who are still in a formal state of war with Israel, and those present Arab states cozying up to Israel, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey does not boycott Israel.

Rather it has done the exact opposite, such as entrenching its national airlines, Turkish Airlines, into Israeli tourism, last year breaking a record of carrying over a million passengers to and from Ben-Gurion airport.

It is on these airlines that not only Turkish Jews come back and forth, but also Turkish secular Muslims looking to party in Tel Aviv; they sit together with American Jewish tourists, mixing also with Turkish pro-Palestinian activists who do not buy into the BDS campaign, but rather fly into Tel Aviv in order to take up Erdogan’s own advice to visit the Holy City of Al-Quds.    

In fact, it would seems safe to say that Turkey found, following the previous suspension of relations with Israel that being cut off from Palestinians came with a cost; true, rhetoric is nice, but they only can extend their soft power within the Palestinian camp, and the Middle East, by retaining (good) relations with Israel. 

Despite the absence of a reliable crystal ball, it seems certain that the strong economic ties between Israel and Turkey will be able to weather this storm. However, on the political front, the tit-for-tat rhetoric shot back and forth from Ankara and Jerusalem could, if they are not careful, break the scripted model of downgrading diplomatic relations and removing ambassadors, retaining ties, and then working to overcome the differences. 

Both Netanyahu and Erdogan have reason to feel empowered.

The Israeli economy is continuing to see stability and growth, its alliance with Saudi Arabia and Gulf States against Iran, gives it a new sense of strength, making Turkey relatively less important. Further, Netanyahu seems to have understood already during the 2016 reconciliation between the two countries, that Turkey now needs Israel; and not vice-versa.

As for Erdogan, even if he is clearly not interested in hurting mutual economic ties, he will have been fortified by his pride at the special place as loud advocate he holds among many Palestinians. World outrage at the Gaza death toll, that he is not alone in his quest against Israel, gives him a tailwind and may lead him to push too hard. And confronting a surprisingly perilous position in the upcoming Turkish polls, there is always the chance that Erdogan will choose escalation as a sure source of political capital.

*This article appeared in Haaretz on May, 16 2018. Click here for the link.

After 15 Years, Is Turkey Saying 'Enough' to Erdogan?*

Haaretz: "If one day our nation says 'enough,' then we will step aside.' Erdogan's gaffe opened the gates of Turkish social media derision and gifted a slogan to a re-invigorated political opposition. But he won't give way without a fight."

"If one day our nation says 'enough,' then we will step aside," Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday in a speech in parliament, and opened the gates of Turkish social media derision and activism.

#Tamam ("Enough") took off like wildfire and became a trending Twitter topic worldwide, with over two million tweets telling Erdogan that, indeed, they have had enough of him. As journalist Rusen Cakir noted, the increasingly autocratic Erdogan had, strangely, just "offered the opposition a slogan to unite behind."

And they did, with the major political opposition heads tweeting the hashtag and declaring that the time had come.

That rare gaffe by Erdogan may be a sign of an unfamiliar stress the Turkish leader, and that he is, for now, facing the greatest challenge to his political survival since coming to power: Elections, with a newly revitalized opposition, are a month away.

It's almost three weeks since Erdogan declared snap presidential and parliamentary elections for June 24, more than a year earlier than scheduled.

That ended several months of speculation that signs of a major economic crisis in Turkey might trigger early elections. Some predict Erdogan and his party will benefit from the wave of Turkish nationalism that surged in the wake of a general consensus in Turkey that the military campaign against Kurdish forces in Afrin, northern Syria, succeeded in its objectives.

Early elections also will allow the ruling AKP party to pre-empt, if not arrest, the growing momentum of the new opposition party, "Iyi" (Good), led by Meral Aksener.

This party offers a new home to those nationalists who are abandoning the MHP in the wake of its leader’s 180 degree u-turn from opposing Erdogan to becoming his staunch ally. Despite Erdogan’s denials, many believe the speed with which the snap elections were called was an attempt by the AKP to sideline the Iyi party. That went hand-in-hand with speculation that the timing provided convenient grounds to disqualify the Aksener's party from running, because it had been registered less than the mandatory six-month period prior to elections.

Amidst fears the Iyi party might be disqualified, the main CHP opposition party stepped up to ensure Iyi’s participation. The CHP transferred 15 of its own parliamentarians to the Iyi party’s bloc of five (defectors from the MHP) entitling it to run in the election, regardless of its registration date.

Had the AKP been outsmarted? It certainly seems so, but the real importance of the move was that it exemplified a rare moment where the Turkish opposition at long last set the agenda.

The CHP’s move naturally opened the door for an alliance with the Iyi Party, and was followed by them joining forces with two smaller parties, the Muslim conservative party Saadet (the political home from which Erdogan himself emerged before launching the AKP in the early 2000s),  and another smaller faction, the Demokrat Party. Importantly, the alliance will let those two smaller Saadet and Demokrat parties to jump over the decades-old high ten-percent threshold.

The elephant in the room of course is the fact that the HDP, the mostly Kurdish party, was left out of the opposition alliance.

When the HDP crossed the vote threshold in the June 2015 elections, it pushed Erdogan's AKP into a corner for the first time since coming to power in 2002.

Erdogan faced a choice: to agree to be partner to a coalition government or call snap elections. It did the latter, and in the November 2015 elections the AKP swept enough votes to once again rule alone. With renewed fighting between Turkey and the PKK, the outlawed Kurdish separatist party, the HDP has been under attackand all but delegitimized by the state; its candidate for president and former co-chair of the party, Selahattin Demirtas, along with eight of its MPs are all behind bars.        
Bringing the Kurdish-majority party into the alliance may never have been on the bloc’s agenda. But their exclusion was a deliberate ploy by the mainstream opposition parties not to risk losing the nationalist vote, the Iyi party’s main constituency.

If the opposition alliance plays its cards right, a majority vote - or at least a vote that greatly closes the large gap between the AKP and the opposition - could be in reach for the first time in a decade and a half. If the HDP gets makes it, that will cut into the AKP’s piece of the pie in the upcoming parliament, something the opposition alliance itself recognizes.

As much as this election is about each party galvanizing its own constituency, the overriding need to strategize and build informal coalitions is just as important.

That strategic horse-trading is a crucial window into what kind of coalition might be formed after the elections. However, it’s complicated by the fact that there are two election campaigns in train simultaneously, for the president and for the legislature.

The presidential election is even more crucial than usual because the executive presidential laws, legitimated by last year’s referendum come into effect after the elections. That means the president will appoint all government ministers in the next parliament, and that cabinet will no longer be answerable to parliament, which will continue to be the legislative authority despite the limiting of its powers.

Although it seems a long shot in a political and media context that systematically privileges Erdogan, the opposition is also gearing up cleverly for the presidential elections.

First, they rightly refrained from choosing a joint candidate. One of the names floated for this was Abdullah Gul, a founder of the AKP and a former president; however, it was far from clear that this soft-spoken politician, who has opted for a passive resistance to Erdogan, could ever get to the necessary 50% in the first round.

Instead, all the opposition parties will run their own candidates; each camp can rile up their own base without compromising their messages. The thinking is they will then stand a better chance of pushing Erdogan into a second round vote.  

The stand-out presidential opposition candidate for now is the CHP’s Muharrem Ince. He is a fighter with a sharp tongue who can stand up to the charismatic Erdogan. Close behind is the Iyi party’s Meral Aksener, who would also be sure to keep the government on its toes, and some predict could even lead in the votes. In the 2014 presidential elections the HDP’s Selahattin Demirtas received almost 10% of the vote and it seems that his chances to reach the same number this time, is certainly in range – even though he is submitting his candidature from jail. 

A second-round of voting for the president is thus likely, as long as the parties succeed in energizing each of their bases and the vote is further split with small percentages for the Saadet Party and other minor candidates will attract. That vote would take place two weeks later, on July 8.

And Ince knows that if this happens, his best chance to challenge Erdogan in a run off is to reach out to the Kurdish vote. Since the start of his campaign, Ince has sent strong signals to the HDP; he has publicly demanded Demirtas’ release, and this week held a meeting with him in prison.

While the new opposition stirrings will be brushed off by some as a return to the 1990s politics of endless coalition-building, this old-new dynamic has one cause above all: Erdogan’s usurping of more and more power  to the dismay of many Turkish citizens. Despite Erdogan’s popularity in certain sections of the population, the AKP is very publicly failing to deal with an ever-weaker economy.

That means its veneer of untouchability is tarnishing; and that it is beginning to resemble the very parties it threw out in 2002, who were deeply resented due to their bad economic policies and incompetence at connecting to the electorate.

There are other signs that the AKP’s momentum is stalling. Apart from Erdogan, the main faces of the AKP today are far from being charismatic campaigners or crowd-pleasers, but rather robotic mouthpieces for their boss. That same uninspiring cadre led the AKP to lose the vote in every major city, including Istanbul, in the referendum.  

There is a sense in Turkey that the political winds might be starting to turn against the AKP, and that Erdogan, the leader that has ruled for 16 years, miscalculated the political map when calling early elections.

True, the opposition does not have a magic wand to remove the many obstacles it faces, not least lifting the draconian State of Emergency, effecting the release of the HDP’s presidential candidate Demirtas, or claiming their legitimate right for equal mainstream media time. It also cannot influence the election board’s strangely lenient policy toward counting questionable ballots, as we saw in the last referendum.

However, despite the obstacles, and for the first time in years, the opposition is certainly giving the AKP a run for its money; as the millions who viewed, shared and participated in the #Tamam campaign shows, their grassroots support is substantial and their opposition to the president emphatic.    

But Erdogan hasn’t survived this long and centralized power so determinedly to let that opposition narrative play out. The more he feels the heat, the more efforts will made to delegitimize the opposition and to place new obstacles in their way. 

*This article appeared in Haaretz on May, 10 2018. Click here for the link