US embassy cable - 05ANKARA5190

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 005190 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/07/2025 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PINS, TU 
SUBJECT: RULING AKP'S GRASSROOTS DIFFICULTIES IN ANKARA'S 
URBAN SPRAWL 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 4914 
 
     B. ANKARA 4042 
     C. ANKARA 4497 
     D. ANKARA 4857 
 
Classified By: POLCOUNS Janice G. Weiner; E.O. 12958, reasons 1.4 (b,d) 
 
1. (C) Summary.  The ruling Justice and Development Party 
(AKP) faces challenges in trying to maintain momentum in 
meeting its extremely ambitious goals for grassroots party 
building.  AKP is running into difficulty filling party slots 
with clean, competent people; corrupt politicians, 
businessmen, and even gangsters try to join the party.  Local 
party leaders must also balance the sharply differing 
ideological and territorial factions within the party.  While 
AKP,s grassroots organization gives it a huge advantage over 
Turkey,s other parties, in the long run, corruption and 
AKP,s lack of internal democracy threaten to erode its 
strength.  End Summary. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
TOP-DOWN PARTYBUILDING: FINDING THE "RIGHT" INDIVIDUALS 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
2. (C) AKP Altindag sub-provincial chairman Orhan Kaya, a 
longstanding Embassy contact, tells us that AKP has set 
ambitious goals for grassroots party building in Ankara and 
other provinces.  AKP seeks to have 25 percent of the adult 
population enrolled as members of the party.  In addition to 
the provincial, sub-provincial, and local party officials, 
AKP wants to duplicate in Ankara and elsewhere its Istanbul 
approach of having an AKP representative on every street and 
in every apartment building.  They also want to assign nine 
individuals to party-building tasks for every ballot box in 
Turkey -- three seasoned male party members, three women's 
auxiliary members, and three youth auxiliary members. 
 
3. (C) Altindag is a poor section of Ankara with about 
400,000 residents, including 230,000 residents of voting age. 
 AKP, according to Kaya, has 30,000 members in Altindag, 
including 10,000 who hold official positions within the 
party.  He acknowledges that the party is now having 
difficulty attracting qualified people.  AKP wants "moderate, 
socially conservative, well-educated, and well-meaning" 
individuals to take leadership positions within the party. 
However, Kaya acknowledged most individuals who fit this bill 
simply want to vote and do not want to play an active role in 
politics.  The individuals who want to be active in politics 
tend to be more radical or extreme in their views.  They also 
tend to be less well-educated.  The second problem is that 
corrupt individuals -- including leaders of criminal gangs 
and corrupt businessmen -- are trying to join the party in 
Altindag.  This problem has infected other Turkish parties in 
the past; according to Kaya, AKP's leadership is trying to 
keep the party clean. 
 
4. (C) Criminal gangs, for example, control street vendors 
and car parking rings (extorting money to "protect" parked 
cars).  A gang "protects" a certain turf, but requires those 
it "protects" to make financial contributions to the gang. 
These payments are then used by the gang to bribe local 
police and governmental officials -- and buy influence with 
political parties.  Kaya claimed that he was approached by a 
former mayor of Altindag from the now-closed 
(Islamist-oriented) Fazilet party with a plan for funding the 
party with contributions from gang-controlled street vendors. 
 
----------------------- 
FACTIONALISM WITHIN AKP 
----------------------- 
 
5. (C) In Kaya's view, AKP is dominated at the national level 
by people from the Milli Gorus (National View) line, the 
outwardly-hard-line Islamist political and social movement of 
Necmettin Erbakan, who was in various coalition governments 
in the 1970's and was Prime Minister from 1996-97.  (Comment: 
Milli Gorus has a certain presence in the AKP parliamentary 
group and appears to control a majority of AKP's provincial 
level organizations.  There are other groups in AKP as well 
-- including followers of Islamist thinker Fethullah Gulen, 
members of the Suleymanci and other Naksibendi-derivative 
brotherhoods, former right-of-center DYPers, former 
center-right ANAPers, leftists, and social democrats -- but 
none is dominant, according to a broad range of Embassy 
contacts within AKP.  End Comment.) 
 
6. (C) According to Kaya, the Milli Gorus group in AKP is 
divided into two main factions: the Iskender Pasa lodge and 
the Selametciler.  The Iskender Pasa lodge is associated with 
Erdogan and the three ministers closest to him:  Finance 
Minister Unakitan, Energy Minister Guler, and Transport 
Minister Yildirim.  The Selametciler are close to former PM 
Erbakan and try to pack local party organizations with their 
supporters.  Kaya added that the AKP party administration in 
Ankara is not controlled by the Selametciler and the current 
leader -- a Suleymanci -- tries to balance the various 
factions within the party. 
 
7. (C) Another major source of factionalism within the Ankara 
AKP is localism, Kaya noted.  There are a number of factions 
based upon where one was born or where one's family came 
from.  These factions include longtime Ankara residents, 
eastern Anatolians (principally from Erzurum), those with 
Black Sea roots, and Kurds.  The Black Sea faction is weak in 
Ankara, but strong in AKP's Istanbul provincial organization 
and in the Cabinet.  Erdogan's roots are in the Black Sea 
province of Rize.  In Ankara, the people from various towns 
in eastern Anatolia have banded together to form one 
super-faction. 
8. (C) There is also what Kaya described as a small 
opposition movement within AKP.  The opposition has no 
leadership and no organizing political principle.  It is 
simply made up of individuals who were not selected to run 
for office in the March 2004 local elections and those 
individuals who were overlooked for leadership roles in the 
party at the provincial, sub-provincial, or local levels. 
They are trying to organize but in Kaya's assessment they are 
unlikely to present a significant challenge to the current 
party leadership. 
 
9. (C) Comment.  The organization, size, strength, and 
commitment of AKP's grassroots give it a huge structural 
advantage vis-a-vis its competitors (ref A), who generally do 
not even try to build grassroots support.  Although AKP 
claims to be an internally democratic party, the senior 
leadership still runs the party in the traditional 
authoritarian manner and the party has repeatedly changed its 
bylaws to strengthen the control of the senior leadership. 
Despite numerous instances of AKP corruption, most Turks 
still believe AKP is not as corrupt as previous governing 
parties.  AKP remains the electoral juggernaut of Turkish 
politics and the other opposition parties are largely 
ineffective (refs B, C, and D), but if AKP fails to remedy 
its lack of internal democracy and corruption, its grassroots 
strength will deteriorate.  End Comment. 
MCELDOWNEY