As
Turkey heads toward its second general election in six months,
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s campaign against the surprise victor of
the first ballot may backfire – again.
The pro-Kurdish HDP won 13
percent of votes in June, helping to deny a wounded ruling party the
supermajority it sought to transform Erdogan’s office into the nation’s
power center. Since then, Turkey’s leaders have redoubled their efforts
to tie the HDP to Kurdish PKK rebels, designated terrorists by Turkey
and the U.S. They sent the air force to bomb the guerrilla’s bases,
reigniting a three-decade conflict.
The rising tide of nationalist
rhetoric and the spreading conflict in Turkey’s southeast haven’t
dented support for the HDP, according to two opinion polls published in
the last week which put the party on 12.8 percent and 14.1 percent.
Both are above the 10-percent threshold it must cross to seat lawmakers in parliament.
“Escalating
violence may chip away at support for the HDP in the west of the
country,” said Naci Sapan, who analyzes Kurdish politics at the Tigris
Communal Research Center in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. But the
party will benefit from a widespread feeling in the Kurdish southeast
“that the president rekindled violence” for electoral benefit, he said.
HDP
leader Selahattin Demirtas, who built his reputation investigating
human rights abuses during the Kurdish conflict, led his party to 80
seats in the 550-member parliament in June, vowing a new inclusive
politics and the defeat of Erdogan’s attempts to install a
“dictatorship.”
His pitch was aimed at Kurds who had previously
voted for the governing AK Party as well as Turkish secularists living
outside the southeast. The HDP gains left Turkey with a hung parliament
and talks over forging a coalition have foundered. Erdogan’s desire to
usurp parliament’s powers and rule from his 1,150-room palace in Ankara
was a major factor.
During a speech Friday, Erdogan triggered outrage with comments suggesting that he was already at the wheel.
The
presidency wields de facto, rather than symbolic, power “whether one
accepts it or not,” Erdogan said. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main
opposition Republican People’s Party, accused the president of seeking a
legal basis for a “coup.”
Devlet Bahceli, chief of the leading
nationalist group, the MHP, said he had “no tolerance for a locally
produced Hitler, Stalin or Gadhafi.”
The deadline for forming a
government based on June’s results is Aug. 23. Erdogan, who led the AK
Party for more than a decade before becoming president in August last
year, may then order a fresh poll for as early as the end of October.
Erdogan,
who as prime minister embarked on peace talks with the PKK, now says
the group poses an equal threat to Turkey’s southeast as ISIS militants
across the border in Iraq and Syria, whom Turkey is also targeting.
Acting
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has repeatedly denied accusations that
Erdogan secretly pushed for a repeat election to accomplish his
political aspirations. He says the AK Party, which he now heads, is best
placed to prosper from a fresh ballot.
Demirtas and other HDP
politicians don’t deny connections to the PKK – Demirtas’ older brother
is a fighter for the group and the PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan
is seen as the ideological father of the party. What they reject is
accusations that the HDP is an advocate of armed conflict.
“None
of Turkey’s problems can be solved with guns,” Demirtas said in a
statement published Wednesday. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s security
forces, PKK or civilians – the deaths have to stop immediately.”
Erdogan has promised that will not happen.
“I’ll
say it clearly – these operations will continue,” he said in a speech
to supporters in his hometown of Rize on Aug. 12. “As long as the
terrorist organization doesn’t drop its weapons, as long as its
militants don’t leave the country, and as long as the political party
acting under its guidance doesn’t cross over to real democracy, all
bodies of the state will do what’s necessary to protect the nation and
its people.”
Speaking in Ankara a day earlier, Erdogan described the HDP as an “extension of the terror group.”
Attempts
to define Demirtas’ party as controlled by the Kurdish militants are
unlikely to swing the electorate substantially in Erdogan’s favor,
analysts say.
“Support for the AK Party among Kurds will further
decline if there’s an election,” Ozer Sencar, head of MetroPOLL
Strategic and Social Research, said. In the past, “Kurds were voting
either for the AK Party or the HDP, now they just have the HDP to vote
for.”
Turkey’s political impasse and spiraling violence – intense
clashes have forced authorities to declare temporary curfews in at least
two towns in the southeast – is eroding already shaky confidence in the
economy.
The lira has posted the third-biggest drop among major
currencies this year, threatening to unwind the recent slowdown in
inflation and narrowing of the current-account deficit. Turkey’s central
bank Tuesday left all its main interest rates unchanged, citing recent
volatility in the currency and rising food prices.
An election in
October rather than November “would be welcome by the markets as the
period of uncertainty will be shorter,” Teneo Intelligence Managing
Director Wolfango Piccoli said last week. “Yet, the key issue for
investors relates to the prospects of a return to a stable single-party
government and not so much the timing of elections.”
That’s
something Erdogan’s increasingly divisive strategy can’t deliver, Naz
Masraff, director for Europe at Eurasia Group in London, said Friday.
“Erdogan is likely to continue to target the HDP during the campaign
period to discredit them with the hope of keeping them below the
10-percent threshold,” she said.
Still, “a coalition government cannot be avoided next time around.”
Turkey heads toward its second general election in six months,
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s campaign against the surprise victor of
the first ballot may backfire – again.
The pro-Kurdish HDP won 13
percent of votes in June, helping to deny a wounded ruling party the
supermajority it sought to transform Erdogan’s office into the nation’s
power center. Since then, Turkey’s leaders have redoubled their efforts
to tie the HDP to Kurdish PKK rebels, designated terrorists by Turkey
and the U.S. They sent the air force to bomb the guerrilla’s bases,
reigniting a three-decade conflict.
The rising tide of nationalist
rhetoric and the spreading conflict in Turkey’s southeast haven’t
dented support for the HDP, according to two opinion polls published in
the last week which put the party on 12.8 percent and 14.1 percent.
Both are above the 10-percent threshold it must cross to seat lawmakers in parliament.
“Escalating
violence may chip away at support for the HDP in the west of the
country,” said Naci Sapan, who analyzes Kurdish politics at the Tigris
Communal Research Center in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. But the
party will benefit from a widespread feeling in the Kurdish southeast
“that the president rekindled violence” for electoral benefit, he said.
HDP
leader Selahattin Demirtas, who built his reputation investigating
human rights abuses during the Kurdish conflict, led his party to 80
seats in the 550-member parliament in June, vowing a new inclusive
politics and the defeat of Erdogan’s attempts to install a
“dictatorship.”
His pitch was aimed at Kurds who had previously
voted for the governing AK Party as well as Turkish secularists living
outside the southeast. The HDP gains left Turkey with a hung parliament
and talks over forging a coalition have foundered. Erdogan’s desire to
usurp parliament’s powers and rule from his 1,150-room palace in Ankara
was a major factor.
During a speech Friday, Erdogan triggered outrage with comments suggesting that he was already at the wheel.
The
presidency wields de facto, rather than symbolic, power “whether one
accepts it or not,” Erdogan said. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main
opposition Republican People’s Party, accused the president of seeking a
legal basis for a “coup.”
Devlet Bahceli, chief of the leading
nationalist group, the MHP, said he had “no tolerance for a locally
produced Hitler, Stalin or Gadhafi.”
The deadline for forming a
government based on June’s results is Aug. 23. Erdogan, who led the AK
Party for more than a decade before becoming president in August last
year, may then order a fresh poll for as early as the end of October.
Erdogan,
who as prime minister embarked on peace talks with the PKK, now says
the group poses an equal threat to Turkey’s southeast as ISIS militants
across the border in Iraq and Syria, whom Turkey is also targeting.
Acting
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has repeatedly denied accusations that
Erdogan secretly pushed for a repeat election to accomplish his
political aspirations. He says the AK Party, which he now heads, is best
placed to prosper from a fresh ballot.
Demirtas and other HDP
politicians don’t deny connections to the PKK – Demirtas’ older brother
is a fighter for the group and the PKK’s jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan
is seen as the ideological father of the party. What they reject is
accusations that the HDP is an advocate of armed conflict.
“None
of Turkey’s problems can be solved with guns,” Demirtas said in a
statement published Wednesday. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s security
forces, PKK or civilians – the deaths have to stop immediately.”
Erdogan has promised that will not happen.
“I’ll
say it clearly – these operations will continue,” he said in a speech
to supporters in his hometown of Rize on Aug. 12. “As long as the
terrorist organization doesn’t drop its weapons, as long as its
militants don’t leave the country, and as long as the political party
acting under its guidance doesn’t cross over to real democracy, all
bodies of the state will do what’s necessary to protect the nation and
its people.”
Speaking in Ankara a day earlier, Erdogan described the HDP as an “extension of the terror group.”
Attempts
to define Demirtas’ party as controlled by the Kurdish militants are
unlikely to swing the electorate substantially in Erdogan’s favor,
analysts say.
“Support for the AK Party among Kurds will further
decline if there’s an election,” Ozer Sencar, head of MetroPOLL
Strategic and Social Research, said. In the past, “Kurds were voting
either for the AK Party or the HDP, now they just have the HDP to vote
for.”
Turkey’s political impasse and spiraling violence – intense
clashes have forced authorities to declare temporary curfews in at least
two towns in the southeast – is eroding already shaky confidence in the
economy.
The lira has posted the third-biggest drop among major
currencies this year, threatening to unwind the recent slowdown in
inflation and narrowing of the current-account deficit. Turkey’s central
bank Tuesday left all its main interest rates unchanged, citing recent
volatility in the currency and rising food prices.
An election in
October rather than November “would be welcome by the markets as the
period of uncertainty will be shorter,” Teneo Intelligence Managing
Director Wolfango Piccoli said last week. “Yet, the key issue for
investors relates to the prospects of a return to a stable single-party
government and not so much the timing of elections.”
That’s
something Erdogan’s increasingly divisive strategy can’t deliver, Naz
Masraff, director for Europe at Eurasia Group in London, said Friday.
“Erdogan is likely to continue to target the HDP during the campaign
period to discredit them with the hope of keeping them below the
10-percent threshold,” she said.
Still, “a coalition government cannot be avoided next time around.”
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on August 20, 2015, on page 8.
