US embassy cable - 05ANKARA4497

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 004497 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/03/2025 
TAGS: PGOV, TU, POLITICAL PARTIES 
SUBJECT: TURKISH OPPOSITION PARTIES: DEVELOPMENTS ON THE 
RIGHT 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 4042 
 
     B. ANKARA 1730 
     C. 2004 ANKARA 7211 
 
Classified By: POL Counselor John W. Kunstadter, for reasons 1.4 (b) & 
(d). 
 
1. (C) Summary.  Turkey's two main right-of-center opposition 
parties have been unable to mount a serious challenge to the 
governing AKP.  The two parties share very similar ideologies 
and compete for the same voters, but they are unable to unite 
under a common banner.  As with the parties on the 
center-left, these parties are also seriously limited by a 
tradition of authoritarian leadership and an elitist 
unwillingness to engage in the unglamorous work of grassroots 
party building.  End Summary. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
CENTER RIGHT PARTIES FAIL TO GAIN TRACTION AGAINST AKP 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
2. (C) The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) 
remains the juggernaut of Turkish electoral and parliamentary 
politics.  AKP controls 355 of the 550 seats in the 
parliament and, according to recent polls, is supported by 
between 28 percent and 40 percent of the electorate.  The 
secular, left-of-center Republican People,s Party (CHP) 
controls 158 seats in the legislature and it is supported by 
around 15 percent of the electorate. (Ref A for an analysis 
of the left-of-center Turkish parties). 
 
3. (C) The traditional center-right True Path Party (DYP) has 
only four seats in parliament and the ostensibly liberal 
center-right Motherland Party (ANAP) controls fourteen seats 
in parliament.  Both parties received less than 10 percent of 
the vote in the 2002 national elections and 2004 local 
elections.  Recent polls indicate that DYP is supported by 
perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and ANAP is supported by 
around 5 percent. 
 
4. (C) AKP has taken plenty of missteps over the past year 
(Refs B and C).  Many Turks, moreover, are concerned about 
the recent rise in PKK-related violence and anxious about the 
state of the economy, especially the high level of 
unemployment and underemployment.  The right-of-center 
parties, however, have been unable to make significant 
political progress in their struggle against AKP because they 
have been pursuing the wrong political strategies and, like 
their counterparts on the left, displayed a tone deaf elitism 
combined with a deep unwillingness to engage in the 
unglamorous work of grassroots party building. 
 
 
------------------------ 
DYP,S DEEP STATE STATEGY 
------------------------ 
 
5. (C) The DYP is the continuation of the Democrat Party and 
the Justice Party, which were banned by the military in the 
aftermath of the 1960 and 1980 coups.  Traditionally, the 
party was very strong in the rural areas, especially among 
farmers, villages, and small Anatolian businessmen.  DYP, 
however, has not done well in recent elections and it has 
seen much of its traditional electoral base move into the AKP 
camp. 
 
6. (C) DYP Ankara Provincial Chairman Bulent Kusoglu and 
former DYP youth group leader Obahan Obanoglu (strictly 
protect) told POLOFF separately that DYP is not ready for 
elections.  Kusoglu claimed that DYP is trying to build a 
state-centric anti-AKP coalition.  They are reaching out to 
small and medium-sized businessmen, villagers, farmers, and 
individuals from key state institutions, presumably judges, 
prosecutors, governors, subgovernors (kaymakam), regional 
police chiefs, and senior bureaucrats in the Ministry of 
Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, and the military. 
 
7. (C) DYP chairman Mehmet Agar has been traveling around the 
country giving patriotic and anti-AKP speeches to gatherings 
of the DYP faithful at provincial and subprovincial meetings. 
 Although these activities give the appearance of an effort 
to build grassroots support for the party, they are actually 
designed to solidify Agar,s control of the party by rallying 
the diehard DYP supporters behind his leadership. 
 
8. (C) DYP party leaders say they are very fond of Agar.  In 
meetings with POLOFFs, DYP leaders are quick to praise 
Agar,s background, leadership qualities, and 
accomplishments.  They also describe him to POLOFFs as a 
"devlet adami".  This phrase can be translated as "statesman" 
or as "man of the state": DYP leaders are trying to convey 
the later, i.e. that Agar is a creature of and supported by 
the State establishment.  They claim as well that Agar has 
enough credentials as a representative of the "Deep State" 
that no one can accuse him of selling out Turkey when he 
addresses crowds in the Southeast using the Kurdish dialects 
Kurmanji and Zaza. 
 
9. (C) In fact, Agar was head of the Turkish National Police 
during the most bitter days of the Turkish authorities, 
struggle against the PKK insurgency and he is broadly seen as 
responsible for organizing some of the extrajudicial killings 
of suspected PKK operatives during the darkest days of the 
anti-insurgency.  Although Agar,s background is not 
controversial within DYP, many outside Turkish observers -- 
including center-right political analyst Huseyin Kocabiyik -- 
claim that Agar,s history is one of the main reasons DYP has 
failed to gain ground against AKP. 
10. (C) DYP hoped to build momentum coming out of its June 
2005 convention, but Agar mishandled the convention by 
failing to appoint any of the party,s then six MPs -- other 
than himself -- to positions on the party,s seventy-member 
central decision-making board.  Four of the MPs immediately 
resigned from the party, although some later returned.  As a 
result, the news headlines did not focus on any of the 
messages DYP wanted to emphasize, but instead focused on the 
fact that the party lost two-thirds of its MPs in one day. 
 
 
----------------------------- 
ANAP,S PARLIAMENTARY STRATEGY 
----------------------------- 
 
11. (C) ANAP, the party founded by former PM and later 
president Turgut Ozal in 1983, is an ostensibly liberal 
center-right party that traditionally received strong support 
in Turkey,s urban areas and along the Black Sea coast.  The 
party has seen its popularity drop in every election since 
1983 as new parties entered the arena and as allegations of 
corruption clung increasingly tightly to ANAP,s neck.  By 
late 2002, many of the party,s previous supporters had 
defected to AKP and many commentators were writing ANAP,s 
obituary. 
 
12. (C) MP Erkan Mumcu became the leader of ANAP this spring. 
 Formerly in ANAP until he broke with then-chairman Mesut 
Yilmaz, Mumcu had been a minister in PM Erdogan,s 
government, but he defected from AKP to take over the failing 
ANAP.  He has managed to have some success in building the 
party,s representation in parliament.  Although ANAP 
originally had no members in the legislature, Mumcu has been 
able to convince thirteen (excluding himself) MPs to join his 
party. 
 
13. (C) ANAP members assert they are not worried about their 
party,s current poor showing in the polls, because they are 
focused on Mumcu,s efforts to get a minimum of twenty MPs to 
defect to their party.  If ANAP can collect twenty MPs, then 
it forms an official parliamentary group allowing it to exert 
greater influence over parliamentary procedures and winning 
additional financial support from the state.  Dursun Akdemir, 
an ANAP MP, asserted to POLOFF that if ANAP can accumulate 
twenty supporters in parliament, then the party will attract 
media attention and garner mass support.  Kocabiyik, who is 
advising Mumcu, also claimed that breaking the twenty MP 
threshold would open up new possibilities for ANAP. 
 
14. (C) Although Mumcu has drawn attention to the party (and 
himself) he will have to overcome significant hurdles before 
he can succeed in building ANAP into a viable political 
movement.  A number of Embassy contacts have commented on the 
fact that Mumcu -- who is only in his early forties -- is 
seen by many Turks to be egocentric, an elitist hedonist, and 
overly ambitious.  Prior to the 2002 election, Mumcu 
challenged then-ANAP leader Mehmet Yilmaz for control of the 
party.  Only after losing to Yilmaz did Mumcu jump from ANAP 
to AKP.  Less than three years later, he jumped from AKP back 
to ANAP.  Mumcu will also have to overcome, according to 
several Embassy contacts, the public,s widespread disgust 
with the political corruption attributed to ANAP throughout 
the 1980s and 1990s. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
THE DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN BUILDING THE GRASSROOTS 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
15. (C) The major difficulty facing ANAP and DYP, however, is 
their inability to build an extensive grassroots organization 
similar to AKP.  Obanoglu claimed to POLOFF that the 
difficulty is largely financial.  With the notable exception 
of AKP,s workers, most Turkish party workers at the 
grassroots level are not ideologically motivated.  They are 
poorly educated, unemployed, poor, and largely motivated by 
the chance to earn a little money doing door-to-door 
canvassing for the party.  Grassroots canvassers earn 
transportation money, lunch money, cigarette money, and 
pocket money for their troubles. 
 
16. (C) Under the Turkish party law, political parties 
receive financial contribution from the state treasury based 
upon the percentage of the vote they received in the previous 
election and the number of seats they control in the 
parliament.  In 2005, AKP received a subsidy of about $24 
million and CHP received about $13 million.  DYP, in 
contrast, received around $6 million and ANAP received only a 
little over $2 million.  Parties can also charge membership 
fees; but, these fees are minimal and do not significantly 
contribute to the party,s overall finances, according to 
Obanoglu.  ANAP,s miniscule subsidy is causing a real 
strain.  POLOFFs have noticed on recent visits to ANAP 
headquarters that the building is largely empty; the lights 
are off in most rooms; there are few computers on the desks; 
the main reception desk in the foyer has peeling paint; there 
are broken tiles on the floor; and the party's internet page 
(www.anap.org.tr) has been down for the past several weeks. 
 
17. (C) AKP has huge structural advantages when it comes to 
party building, according to Obanoglu.  AKP controls the 
national and most local government, so it is able to use the 
resources of these institutions to reward party supporters. 
AKP also receive the largest financial subsidy from the 
state.  Finally, unlike the other parties, AKP is able to 
recruit ideologically motivated canvassers from the pro-Islam 
National View (Milli Gorus) movement.  Obanoglu claims that 
AKP,s grassroots workers are just as uneducated and poor as 
the other party,s workers, but AKP,s canvassers combine an 
ideological motivation with their desire to earn a little 
money. 
 
18. (C) Comment.  Obanoglu,s assessment reveals a deeper 
problem facing the opposition parties in Turkey.  They see 
grassroots party building as something to be farmed out to 
low paid and poorly educated workers.  The leaders of ANAP, 
DYP, and the other opposition parties are largely unwilling 
to do this work themselves and they are unable to recruit 
ideologically motivated young people to go door-to-door for 
them.  Although AKP,s financial advantages are substantial, 
in a country where political advertising on television and 
radio is heavily restricted, the ability to have motivated 
workers going door-to-door is critical. 
 
19. (C) Comment Continued.  ANAP and DYP, moreover, are 
limited by the failure of their leaderships over the past 
generation to come together to build a unified, broad based, 
center right political party in Turkey.  DYP and especially 
ANAP are plagued by allegations of past corruption.  Finally, 
the right-of-center parties have failed to overcome the 
traditional lack of intra-party democracy in Turkey.  While 
AKP suffers from the same defect, internal party reform could 
breathe new life into the right-of-center parties.  As things 
stand, party members are promoted for unthinking loyalty to 
the party leader, not for innovation or political skill. 
This contributes to tactical and ideological stagnation, and 
attenuates the center-right,s ability to mount a serious 
challenge to AKP.  End Comment. 
 
MCELDOWNEY