US embassy cable - 04ANKARA994

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 000994 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/29/2014 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, TU 
SUBJECT: TURKEY: OPPOSITION LEFT-OF-CENTER CHP LIMPING 
TOWARD LOCAL ELECTIONS 
 
(U) Classified by Political Counselor John Kunstadter. 
Reason: 1.5 (b,d). 
 
 
1. (C) Summary: Main opposition CHP's chances in March 28 
local elections are dim, according to our own extensive 
contacts with party M.P.s and recent polling data.  A few CHP 
M.P.s are growing more critical of party leadership but have 
not shown the courage of their convictions by speaking out 
publicly against chairman Baykal and his cronies for their 
misguided policies.  In addition, internal party dysfunction 
is compounding the difficulty the party has long had in 
connecting to a Turkish public grown weary of CHP's negative 
message and fear-mongering.  End summary. 
 
 
--------------------- 
Out of Touch -- Still 
--------------------- 
 
 
2. (C) A broad range of CHP contacts acknowledges that the 
party is not likely to do well in the March 28 local 
elections.  Some (unconvincingly) blame a media conspiracy, 
according to which ruling AK Party (AKP) controls the various 
media cartels by forgiving their debts or through outright 
blackmail, for the party's ills and are reluctant to engage 
in self-criticism.  Others attribute the party's expected 
poor performance to (1) the sterility of its public strategy 
of calling into question GOT intentions and attempting to 
generate and exploit fears of an AKP-led Islamist threat to 
the State; and (2) a singular lack of contact with Anatolia 
in general and the man in the street everywhere. 
 
 
3. (U) The most recent example of CHP's sterile AKP-bashing 
was vice chairman for foreign policy and retired Ambassador 
Onur Oymen's Feb. 18 parliamentary rant against the AKP 
government's attempt to solve the Cyprus question.  Oymen's 
mephitic speech prompted center-left daily "Radikal"'s editor 
Ismet Berkan to recall in his Feb. 19 column that Oymen, as 
then-MFA Undersecretary, had been the one responsible for 
taking Turkey to the brink of war with Greece over the 
Kardak/Imia islets in 1995 by withholding vital information 
from then-FonMin Baykal and PM Ciller. 
 
 
4. (C) In a recent prominent example of fear-mongering, CHP 
tried to make hay of a 1995 speech by Prime Ministry 
Undersecretary Omer Dincer, who at that time argued that the 
Republic might be better served if Islam played a prominent 
role in State affairs.  In a recent meeting, CHP central 
committee member and Hatay M.P. Fuat Cay argued to poloff 
that Dincer's statements are proof that AKP is trying to 
undermine the "secular" Republic.  In addition, Cay asserted 
without evidence that violence against women who do not wear 
headscarves is increasing in rural areas.  He claimed that 
women in Fatih and Esenler -- conservative districts in 
Istanbul -- cannot wear "stylish" clothes without being the 
subject of scorn.  "Fatih and Esenler are like Pakistan and 
Saudi Arabia," he exclaimed.  Cay admitted, however, that he 
had not been to either district recently. 
 
 
5. (C) Other M.P.s, however, are critical of CHP's general 
approach.  Istanbul M.P. Damla Gurel, who also serves on the 
party central committee, told poloff recently that she is 
disappointed with the party's focus on the AKP as an 
"Islamist threat" when there are more pressing issues for 
Turks like jobs, food, and social justice.  She claimed to 
have made a similar argument to Baykal in a Jan. central 
committee meeting.  However, the CHP leader dismissed her 
arguments, she said, by asserting that "protecting the 
secularist state is a virtue."  Recent public opinion data 
bear out Gurel's sentiment.  According to a January poll by 
the firm Pollmark, only 22 percent believe that CHP's 
criticism of Dincer was fair; some 66 percent do not/not 
believe AKP is trying to establish "a state based on sharia". 
 
 
6. (C) In the past week CHP'ers Necdet Budak (Edirne), Mehmet 
Nessar (Denizli), and Esat Canan (a Kurdish tribal leader 
from Hakkari) have also acknowledged to us various aspects of 
CHP's structural and policy weaknesses, from Baykal's 
authoritarianism and the emptiness of CHP's parliamentary 
opposition to the party's lack of contact with ordinary 
voters. 
 
 
7. (C) Offering a further view of CHP's shortcomings, Agri 
M.P. Cemal Kaya (a prominent Kurd), who broke with the party 
following CHP's failure to support the GOT repentance bill 
for PKK terrorists last summer and later joined AKP, affirmed 
to poloff Feb. 9 that CHP has become the protector of a State 
that is out of touch with Turkish realities.  Kaya was 
dismissive of CHP's reliance on the educated chattering class 
as its voter base, saying "Anatolia is growing up, becoming 
more modern, expecting more from the State, but CHP is not 
changing with the rest of Turkey." 
 
 
-------------------------- 
Party Dysfunction -- Still 
-------------------------- 
 
 
8. (C) Internal party troubles are compounding CHP's policy 
missteps.  Gurel noted, for example, that the party does not 
have a clear set of criteria for selecting candidates for 
local elections.  All decision making is concentrated in the 
hands of Baykal and a couple of close advisors.  Budak 
similarly confided to us that he would never have been chosen 
as a candidate if the selection process for the 2002 general 
elections had been as tightly controlled by Baykal as it is 
now.  Asked if her status as central committee member 
afforded her access to Baykal's inner circle, Gurel laughed, 
saying "My position brings additional expectations from 
voters but no new authority to do anything."  Noting that 
none of the committee members or party vice chairmen has a 
job description or portfolio, Gurel added that "if I could 
copy AKP's organization and paste it onto CHP, I'd do it." 
 
 
9. (C) Former State Minister and CHP M.P. Kemal Dervis echoed 
Gurel in a recent meeting with poloff, acknowledging that AKP 
had far superior local party offices.  Dervis, who has made 
few public statements since becoming a party vice chairman 
last fall, disclosed that he is staying out of party decision 
making on local elections.  "I wouldn't have much influence 
on picking candidates anyway," he said.  A clearly frustrated 
Dervis said that many CHP members truly believe the party 
will do well March 28, claiming that even if 50 percent 
support AKP, the remaining 50 percent is likely to support 
CHP, since the party is the only viable opposition. 
Dismissing this as false logic, Dervis said he believes Turks 
will prefer not to vote than to cast their lot with CHP. 
 
 
-------------------------- 
Down in the Polls -- Still 
-------------------------- 
 
 
10. (C) CHP's troubles are apparent in recent polling data. 
For months CHP has been polling well below the 19 percent the 
party received in the Nov. 2002 national elections. 
According to Pollmark, whose methodology appears sound to us, 
CHP has consistently received 12-15 percent support from 
those Turks who are asked "If there were Parliamentary 
elections today, to whom would you give your vote?"  In 
contrast, support for ruling AKP in hypothetical national 
elections has climbed to between 54-57 percent over the same 
period, according to Pollmark. 
 
 
11. (C) The Pollmark surveys also indicate that Turks are 
dissatisfied with CHP: in the January poll, for example, 66 
percent of respondents said CHP has performed poorly.  In 
addition, party leader Deniz Baykal ranks well below AKP 
chairman/P.M. Erdogan for the most liked politician in 
Turkey.  Erdogan received 26.6 percent of the vote, while 
Baykal received only 4 percent, ranking him below his 
arch-rival on the left Bulent Ecevit (6.5 percent). 
 
 
12. (C) Pollmark director Ozer Sencar asserted to poloff 
recently that CHP is in danger of losing almost all of the 
election races in Turkey's big cities, including in Izmir, a 
bastion of the political left.  Sencar asserted that AKP had 
pulled ahead of CHP in Izmir (23 percent to 21 percent), even 
though the CHP candidate, incumbent mayor Ahmet Piristina, is 
respected, suggesting that CHP's inadequate performance at 
the national level is spilling over into local politics. 
Sencar also noted that according to his own analysis of the 
survey data, Alevis (heterodox Muslims) are no longer blindly 
supporting CHP but are dividing their votes among all 
parties, including AKP.  We had heard the same analysis from 
other contacts prior to the Nov. 2002 elections. 
 
 
------------------------- 
Note on Polling in Turkey 
------------------------- 
 
 
13. (C) Sencar related to poloff that security forces in the 
Southeast routinely incarcerate his firm's pollsters, despite 
the lifting of emergency rule and the slow spread of reform 
in the region.  Security forces -- police and jandarma -- and 
the judiciary argue that the pollsters have to register with 
the State before conducting surveys, something the Pollmark 
employees are not legally bound to do.  Sencar said he has 
had to call the Interior Ministry, local Governors' offices, 
and even AKP headquarters to get his employees released.  He 
also noted that some questions -- particularly about the 
military and Kurdish DEHAP -- still make Turkish citizens 
uncomfortable, particularly in the Southeast, leading to 
false answers and thus distorted data on attitudes toward 
either issue. 
EDELMAN