US embassy cable - 05ANKARA581

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000581 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/09/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PINS, TU 
SUBJECT: MAIN OPPOSITION CHP LEADERSHIP STUGGLE -- BAYKAL'S 
PYRRHIC VICTORY 
 
 
Classified By: ANKARA 000198 
04 ISTANBUL 001729 
ANKARA 000501 
ISTANBUL 000147 
04 ANKARA 006839 
 
POLCOUNS John Kunstadter; reasons 1.4 (b,d) 
 
1. (C) Summary.  Republican People's Party (CHP) leader 
Baykal was re-elected chairman of CHP at the party's 
convention on 28-29 January.  Baykal's re-election marks a 
significant victory over his key political rivals within the 
party, but the negative publicity surrounding their 
leadership struggle and the violent party convention will 
further weaken the increasingly irrelevant and ineffective 
CHP.  End Summary. 
 
2. (C) CHP leader Deniz Baykal was re-elected chairman of CHP 
with 674 of 1,219 votes cast in the first round at the 
party's Extraordinary Convention on 28-29 January. 
Istanbul-Sisli Mayor Mustafa Sarigul received 460 votes, 
about 100 more than the number of signatures he got to 
register his candidacy.  Eight-five votes were declared 
invalid, probably because they were cast for candidates that 
failed to muster enough signatures to be on the official 
ballot. 
 
3. (C)  A fight broke out at the convention when Sarigul and 
his supporters first entered the hall.  Several people were 
hurt and three delegates were hospitalized.  Sarigul himself 
was caught on camera punching the mayor of Bakirkoy.  Chaos 
erupted in the hall and at one point the police had to be 
called in to restore order.  Sarigul and his supporters 
boycotted the second day of the convention, thereby allowing 
the Baykal faction to easily elect their slate to the Party 
Assembly and Disciplinary Board.  The convention was carried 
live on a couple of Turkish television stations and all of 
Sunday's papers -- except leftist Cumhuriyet -- carried front 
page pictures of the carnage. 
 
4. (C) Baykal gave a three hour speech as party chairman and 
another fifty minutes speech as a candidate for the party 
chairmanship.  Although his speech was interrupted repeatedly 
by Sarigul supporters, Baykal -- whom many educated Turks 
considered a gifted public orator -- provided details about 
Sarigul's alleged political corruption and alleged efforts to 
bribe the CHP Disciplinary Board (Refs A and B).  Baykal's 
rhetorical argument -- that he is standing up against the 
corrupt individuals who have overtaken parts of the party -- 
cuts two ways.  First, because the claim that corruption is 
rank in the party undermines his own claims to effective 
leadership of CHP.  Second, because, as Baykal supporter 
Mehmet Nessar (Denizli MP) told us Jan. 31, it raises the 
question why Baykal offered the prized Antalya mayoral 
candidacy to Sarigul if Sarigul's corruption was so clear at 
the time.  Baykal also repeated his false claim that a 
"crusade" has been launched against CHP in retribution for 
its opposition to the failed 1 March 2003 resolution in the 
Turkish parliament that would have authorized US troop 
deployment into Iraq through Turkey (Refs C and D). Sarigul 
spoke for about an hour and a half, but we agree with media 
commentators and Embassy contacts who characterized him as 
ineffective and outclassed by Baykal. 
 
5. (C) In the aftermath of the convention, Baykal will move 
to further consolidate his control of the party and punish 
the dissidents.  Sarigul asserts he will remain in CHP, but 
others have said that many disgruntled CHPers will leave the 
party.  Nessar told us he understands from Baykal that, in 
reaction to the apparent support for Sarigul by MP's who had 
said they would remain loyal to Baykal, about ten CHP MPs 
will be expelled from the party for having supported Sarigul. 
 Before the convention, CHP MP Hasan Aydin and former CHP 
state minister Erol Cevikce told POLOFF separately that CHP 
dissidents -- including at least twenty MPs -- would leave 
CHP to form a new leftist or left-of-center party if Baykal 
won re-election. 
 
6. (C) Comment.  The convention was a Pyrrhic victory for 
Baykal because the tactics he employed have only further 
weakened CHP's reputation with the public and Baykal's 
standing as leader within the party.  Baykal's victory over 
Sarigul, moreover, will not end the leadership struggle 
within CHP (Ref E).  This is the third major challenge to 
Baykal's authoritarian control over the party in the past two 
years.  Baykal's control and manipulation of the CHP party 
processes have allowed him to maintain control of the party 
machinery so far, but his popularity and power within the 
party continue to decline with each contest.  He received 
only 674 votes at this convention, compared to 973 votes for 
the convention in October 2003 and 781 votes in July 2004. 
The party will hold another convention in October 2005 and 
anti-Baykal elements within the party are already working to 
overthrow him. 
 
7. (C) Concerning Baykal's anti-American campaign (repeatedly 
throwing out charges that the U.S. was behind the efforts to 
remove him and to crush the party), Nessar initially implied 
he could not understand Baykal's motivation when we asked 
whether Baykal really believes the conspiracy theories or has 
merely used them to manipulate sentiment.  Acknowledging he 
knew the supposed Pentagon documents implicating the U.S. 
were rank forgeries, Nessar then weakly suggested that Baykal 
had merely indulged in a tactic for internal political 
consumption.  However, he listened intently when we 
underscored how badly Baykal has damaged his and his party's 
reputation in Washington by indulging in such cheap and 
mendacious conspiracy-mongering.  End Comment. 
EDELMAN