US embassy cable - 04ANKARA1423

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 001423 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
ANKARA PASS IZMIR 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, PINR, TU 
SUBJECT: Prime Minister leads AK Party press to win two 
big Southeast mayoralties 
 
 
This is a joint Embassy Ankara/Consualte Adana cable. 
 
 
1.(SBU) Summary:  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan 
visited Adana twice last week and Mersin once to plug 
ruling AK Party (AKP) candidates for the Adana and 
Mersin municipality races.  AKP's recent decision to 
accept current frontrunner and maverick incumbent Adana 
mayor Aytac Durak into the party has resulted in an 
alliance of convenience which has unsettled local AKP 
members.  It is also seen in Adana as evidence of AKP's 
determination to use its national incumbency to spread 
its regional power base.  Mahmut Arslan, endorsed by 
Erdogan as AKP's candidate for Mersin Mayor, is a Kurd 
originally from Mardin, whom AKP apparently hopes can 
successfully woo many voters from the immigrant city's 
strong  pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (DEHAP) 
bloc.  This is a riskier strategy for AKP and may split 
the Kurdish vote in Mersin enough to allow incumbent 
CHP mayor Macit Ozcan to retain power.  Meanwhile, AKP 
stumbled in two smaller southeast venues, Mardin and 
Batman, where it filed its respective mayoral 
candidates' papers too late to meet central election 
commission qualification deadlines.  End Summary. 
 
 
AKP rolling out big gun to win Adana, Mersin 
 
 
2. (U)  Prime Minister Erdogan visited Adana twice and 
Mersin once the week of  Feb. 23 to plug ruling AKP 
candidates for the Adana and Mersin municipality races. 
Erdogan, accompanied by German Chancellor Gerhard 
Schroeder, used the Sugozu power plant opening in 
Yumurtalik in Adana province to highlight AKP's job 
creation potential in the area and energize party 
officials.  He followed up with a whirlwind trip to 
Adana and Mersin on February 29. 
 
 
Durak's long rein in Adana City Hall checkered 
 
 
3.(U)  Durak, currently serving his third term and 13th 
consecutive year as Adana mayor, is governing under the 
Motherland Party (ANAP) mantle. He served in his 
previous mayoral terms under the True Path (DYP) and 
ANAP banners.  A contractor, he has become quite 
wealthy during his incumbency. 
 
 
AK choice of Durak controversial in party rank and file 
 
 
4. (U)  As soon as Erdogan on February 29 announced 
AKP's endorsement of Durak's candidacy for greater 
Adana alongside the other two AKP candidates for the 
two local Adana municipalities hecklers and local AKP 
disaffected start booing and jeering.  Erdogan 
immediately put them in place with sharp retorts from 
the podium.  The next day, March 1,  Adana AKP chairman 
Abdullah Dogru sharply stated in area newspapers that 
no one in AKP has a right to criticize Durak's 
candidacy for AKP  and called for party discipline.  He 
threatened party expulsion for any who might further 
criticize the choice, saying "Tayyip Erdogan appointed 
him, we have to accept Durak and show respect for him." 
Then on March 2, Dogru expelled an AKP member for 
continuing criticism of Durak's nomination. 
 
 
CHP and ANAP not fielding strong Adana candidates 
 
 
5.(SBU)  CHP supporters are grumbling, too, about their 
party's choice of Bulent Ozulku, a majority shareholder 
in Adana's Universal hospital, as the CHP mayoral 
candidate.  He has been tried in State Security Court 
in the past and, after CHP endorsed him, newspapers in 
the area featured file pictures with him in handcuffs . 
Both Ozulku and Umit Ozgumus, Adana Chamber of Industry 
President until he announced his Adana mayoral 
candidacy on the ANAP ticket, are rumored to have 
organized crime connections, although none of these 
allegations has ever been substantiated. 
 
 
Mersin a close CHP-AKP race 
 
 
6.(SBU)  In Mersin, incumbent CHP mayor Macit Ozcan is 
racing neck-and-neck with AKP candidate Mahmut Arslan, 
a Kurd originally from Mardin, whom AKP apparently 
hopes can successfully woo many voters from the 
immigrant city's strong  pro-Kurdish Democratic 
People's Party (DEHAP) bloc.  DEHAP is trying to 
bolster its support for Socialist People's party (SHP) 
candidate Fikri Saglar by pursuing a joint ticket with 
SHP. Mersin business community contacts note that Ozcan 
is popular in the city because of the public 
infrastructure he has built in his last term.  They 
also predicted a split in the city's sizeable Kurdish 
vote, with Arslan receiving the lion's share, 
benefiting the Ozcan campaign.  Still, strong 
campaigning by AKP, including deployment of Prime 
Minister Erdogan on Arslan's behalf and the public 
relations coaching of p.r. guru Abdulrahman Celik 
(rumored to be very close to controversial Islamist 
leader Fethullah Gulen), leave the race's final outcome 
still open, they said. 
 
 
AKP less organized in Southeast 
 
 
7.(U)  AKP stumbled in two smaller southeast venues, 
Mardin and Batman, where the party filed its mayoral 
candidates' papers too late to meet central election 
commission deadlines for participation, according to 
press reports confirmed to Amconsul by AKP officials. 
DYP was also disqualified  by the central election 
commission on similar grounds in Mardin. 
 
 
Comment: 
 
 
8.(SBU)  Now that it has snared Durak for its 
bandwagon, AKP seems likely to gain, in Adana, a large 
new Turkish municipality for its political base. The 
price it might pay in both a tarnished public image and 
disaffected local rank-and-file is yet to be seen.  It 
also stands a chance of  winning, in Mersin, another 
large municipality, although that race is still a toss- 
up with CHP and affected by Kurdish perceptions across 
the southeast that AKP is too nationalist and 
indifferent to the Kurdish question.  We suspect the 
difficulties AKP has in Mardin and Batman reflect the 
party's uneasy relations with Kurds; we will continue 
to follow up with AKP and others to assess where these 
relations are going in the southeast.  End Comment. 
 
 
EDELMAN