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TURKEY: Poll Win a Setback for AKP

Hilmi Toros

ISTANBUL, Apr 4 2009 (IPS) - Turkey’s ruling party won the local elections last week, but the reduced majority comes as indicator that its popularity may be in decline.

The local elections were contested on national issues, and seen as a vote of confidence in the government. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), in power since 2002, polled 40 percent of the vote, down from 42 percent in local elections in 2004 and a high of 47 percent in the parliamentary contest in 2007.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his “disappointment” with the results, and said “lessons will be drawn” from the setback. The AKP had expected to go over the 50 percent mark. The ruling party lost 16 mayoral seats.

“This could be the beginning of AKP sliding downward,” Sanem Argun, an analyst of Turkish politics told IPS. “It will liven up politics, and other parties will see themselves as viable alternatives to AKP.”

The ruling party appears to have underestimated the impact of the global economic crisis on Turkey, and the sentiment of Kurds, close to a fifth of the electorate.

Party losses came in industrial areas bearing the brunt of job losses with unemployment going up from single digit level to 13 percent. Car production collapsed by over 60 percent in the first two months of the year. A poll in the daily Haber Turk on the eve of the elections showed that 75 percent of university graduates were unable to find jobs, with half saying they would emigrate if given the chance.

The government first claimed that the Turkish economy was strong enough to withstand the impact of the global crisis, and only recently did it take measures such as reducing value added tax on car sales. The government also dragged its negotiations for a loan of up to 25 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), claiming it was not that urgent, while economists had urged a speedy infusion of cash.

In the Kurdish populated south-east and east of the country, AKP campaigned on a platform of its record of service, spurning the “ethnic” politics of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP). The pro-Kurdish party, pressing for “democratic autonomy”, captured 5 percent of the vote but wrested major seats from AKP in Van and in Siirt, the former parliamentary district of Erdogan. DTP candidate Osman Baydemir received 65 percent of votes in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the south-east, despite a determined AKP campaign.

As a gesture to the Kurdish population, the government had begun a 24- hour channel in Kurdish in January – a demand considered critical for human rights by the European Union as Turkey aspires to join the EU as its first Muslim nation.

In its slippage, AKP may have been paying the price also for its sudden and phenomenal success in the general election in 2007. That is now seen as a one-off triumph and as the electorate’s emotional reaction in a snap election called when the military opposed the party’s candidate for president, then foreign minister Abdullah Gul. The elections then gave a resounding victory to AKP, and Parliament eventually elected Gul as Turkey’s first president with an Islamist past.

The burning issue of secularist versus Islamist that had dominated Turkish politics for the past few years was conspicuously absent from the campaign in these local elections.

The local election campaign was marred by scattered violence, with eight people killed in shootouts by rival candidates and their supporters. Losing candidates in Ankara and Istanbul asked for investigation into reports of irregularities in ballot counting.

The left-of-centre Peoples Republic Party (CHP) upped its tally by 5 points to 28 percent, while the resurgent rightist National Movement Party (MHP) rode the recent wave of nationalist fervour to reach 15 percent, for a jump of six points. Polling was held in 81 provinces for an electorate of about 40 million.