US embassy cable - 04ANKARA1847

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 001847 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/29/2005 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PINS, TU 
SUBJECT: RULING AK PARTY'S BIG WIN IN LOCAL ELECTIONS: HOW 
WILL TURKEY ABSORB IT? 
 
 
REF: ANKARA 1842 
 
 
(U) Classified by DCM Robert Deutsch; reasons: 1.4 (b,d). 
 
 
1. () Summary: Ruling AK Party's (AKP) strong but not 
overwhelming win in March 28 elections appears to open the 
way for PM Erdogan to continue to press ahead with an agenda 
of change and reform.  At the same time, the win leaves core 
elements of the Turkish State -- already deeply distrustful 
of what AKP's reforms mean for the established "secular" 
order -- angry and searching quietly but very determinedly 
for alternatives to AKP.   End summary. 
 
 
2. (U) With 87% of votes counted, we would highlight the 
following results: 
 
 
--Given that these were local elections, the best proxy for a 
national vote is that for provincial councils, with AKP at 
42.1%, left-of-center main opposition CHP at 17.9%, 
rightist-nationalist MHP at 10.4%, and center-right DYP at 
10.1%.  AKP had long expected to garner around 50%; a 
detailed analysis of key districts and precincts over the 
next few weeks will reveal why AKP finished at 42% (still 
seven points ahead of its 2002 general election results). 
 
 
--AKP appears to have won 56 of 81 provincial capital mayoral 
races, including Istanbul and Ankara;  AKP has taken three 
bastions of CHP -- Antalya (CHP leader Baykal's home 
province), Hatay, and Gaziantep (outgoing mayor Dogan was 
really his own party) -- and four provincial capitals in the 
southeast formerly held by mainly Kurdish DEHAP and its 
predecessors. 
 
 
--AKP won Istanbul greater municipality with a total 
currently at 44.7%, CHP at 29.4%; an analysis of district and 
precinct results will help indicate why AKP failed to reach 
50% plus, which provincial party leader Muezzinoglu and 
others had long indicated was their target. 
 
 
--AKP thrashed the opposition in Ankara (which has 
traditionally shown a strong "secularist", left-of-center 
vote) with a dominating 54.7% to leftist SHP's 21% and CHP's 
12.6%. 
 
 
--CHP appears to have won only 10 provincial capitals, most 
prominently Turkey's third city Izmir, where incumbent mayor 
Piristina convincingly beat AKP; CHP held on in Mersin (Icel) 
despite a strong push from the alliance of leftist SHP and 
mainly Kurdish DEHAP and a concerted public relations 
campaign by AKP; CHP also won strongly in Sisli district of 
Istanbul, where incumbent mayor Sarigul reached an 
exceptionally strong 67%. 
 
 
3. (C) Significant trends: 
 
 
--AKP increased its share of the vote in every region 
compared to its 2002 results, while CHP fell in every region; 
MHP and DYP, which failed to pass the 10% national threshold 
for parliamentary representation in 2002 each managed to 
raise its total to just over 10%. 
 
 
--What had long been a right-of-center/left-of-center split 
of 60%-65% to 35%-40% in Turkey shifted to 80% 
right-of-center to 20% left-of-center; contacts such as those 
at the Advanced Strategy Center expect the center of Turkish 
politics to reflect a more conservative outlook (this shift 
also helps explain Istanbul-Sisli CHP mayor Sarigul's 
domineering win: he emphasized the importance of mosques and 
religion (i.e., Islam) in his campaign). 
 
 
--As we predicted in reftel, AKP supporters voted for Tayyip 
Erdogan -- as well as for AKP's reputation of delivering 
services and for the prospect that the ruling party would 
provide resources for cities in AKP's hands -- rather than 
for a group of AKP mayoral candidates who, by our direct 
observation and that of a wide range of contacts, were in the 
great majority colorless. 
 
 
--Those supporting AKP also signalled they continue to accept 
Erdogan's caution that Turkey will not see the economic and 
social benefits of AKP in power for up to three years. 
 
 
--CHP held on in much of its traditional strongholds of the 
Aegean and eastern Thrace, but came close to losing its 
traditional bastion of Edirne and lost Tekirdag (main 
producer of the Turkish national alcoholic drink raki), 
Aydin, and Denizli, where it had long had a strong presence, 
to AKP. 
 
 
--The Black Sea region, the butt of most regional jokes in 
Turkey, proved its reputation of contrariness; despite being 
known as a conservative region, seven of the 10 provinces 
from Sinop to Ardahan went to CHP, leftist DSP, or MHP. 
 
 
4. (C) Key questions ahead: 
--How quickly or forcefully will Erdogan push ahead with a 
legislative and constitutional-amendment agenda which the 
Turkish State establishment has already tried to rebuff?  A 
raft of proposed constitutional amendments and, among others, 
draft laws to decentralize public administration and devolve 
significant authority to local levels and to reform the High 
Education Council (YOK) are particularly neuralgic to core 
elements of the State, which see them as a direct and 
material challenge to the Kemalist order. 
 
 
--How thoroughly can Erdogan carry out the (long overdue) 
cabinet shuffle he has said will follow the elections?  In 
other words, is he now powerful enough to change the delicate 
coalition balances within AKP? 
 
 
--How well can Erdogan control the 81 provincial party 
organizations, the great majority of which have a more closed 
(Milli Gorus) character than he wishes to project for the 
party (reftel)?  In this regard, how well will AKP mayors in 
56 provincial capitals establish a modus vivendi with, and 
avoid antagonizing, local army commanders, i.e., on the 
subject of Islamist headscarves at official functions? 
 
 
--Where will the democratic, civilian alternative to AKP come 
from?  CHP is in a dead-end as long as the professional 
naysayer Baykal insists on clinging to the chairmanship; with 
Gaziantep's national figure Celal Dogan defeated, CHP's only 
hope is to promote someone who has reached out to a more 
conservative center, i.e., possibly Sisli mayor Sarigul.  CHP 
misfit Kemal Dervis is a non-starter outside the elitist 
districts of Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir.  DYP and its 
chairman Agar are rescued from oblivion, although much of 
DYP's vote had to do with the attractiveness of local 
candidates and not with Agar.  Moreover, Agar has a dirty 
past (Susurluk scandal and connection to extrajudicial 
killings aimed at the PKK) and will have to clean the party 
of the corrupt hangers-on from the era of former PM Ciller if 
he is to have any traction.  AKP captured Osmaniye, the home 
province of MHP chairman Bahceli, whose fastidiousness has 
made him in any event a less than ideal leader in the minds 
of many MHP supporters.  Moreover, MHP lacks a coherent, 
broadly attractive program. 
EDELMAN