But where do politics head for in Turkey? Will recent developments lead to major disruptions in the country's current picture? How will the political scene affect the election outcome? Speaking at the 27th "Covering Turkey" meeting, themed as "Voters Trends and Social Undercurrents," organized by the Journalists and Writers Foundation's (GYV) Medialog Platform, Bekir Ağırdır, the director of the KONDA Research and Consultancy Company based in İstanbul, offered a fundamental analysis that went beyond daily political debates.
For Ağırdır, the Turkish political arena is currently characterized with lack of political competition. There is no change in the electoral support for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) except for 4- or 5-percent ups and downs during the last 24 months. Normally, the developments during this period should have increased the votes of the opposition parties, but the electoral backing of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) remains flat. This picture indicates the lack of political competition in the country. "The Turkish society has a very low pain threshold," Ağırdır says. Although they express their disapproval of the ruling party's policies regarding Syria and Gezi Park protests, they do not readily change their party affiliations. Ağırdır likes this dilemma of Turkish voters to that of a driver who has to keep moving in a highly congested traffic without any chance to leave the main road due to lack of junctions. "You drive along a no-exit road. You are angry, but you have to keep moving along that road because there is no other choice," he says.
In this political picture depicted by Ağırdır, four parliamentary political parties are stuck with identity-oriented policies. None of them can come up with an "us" policy. Rather, they try to impose their views on others. The AKP has a strong leadership and organization. Until 2011, it has been perceived as the vanguard of change in the society. In 2002, people had voted for the AKP in order to punish other political parties. In 2007, people backed it for economic success. In 2011, people voted for it for political reforms and economic success. But during the last two years, no progress could be made in any areas, particularly including the drafting of a new constitution. Their paradoxes start here:
"The AK Party's first paradox is that it fosters polarization as it believes it can protect its electoral backing by doing so. On the other hand, the other camp is growing and swelling and the rate of friction increases. Therefore, an examination of the rate by which the ruling party-controlled Parliament passes laws reveals that there is a visible slowdown in the post-2011 era. Despite social backing, reform laws are not passed at a slower rate. The second paradox is that the ruling party tends to perceive every criticism and opposition as hostility. Because of these perceptions, it distances itself away from its traditional intellectual and political allies. It increasingly isolates itself. The third paradox is visible in the settlement process regarding the Kurdish issue. It trusts no one but itself, and therefore, it does not allow proper participation of other actors in the process. Then, it complains about lack of participation from other actors. The fourth paradox is that it increasingly identifies itself with the state although it talks about transforming the state. How the AKP will be reorganized after the presidential elections is critical. We will see a completely different AK Party next year."Ağırdır also draws attention to the problems of the opposition parties.
"The CHP is not a catch-all party. It appeals only to well-educated people. It appeals only to certain geographical regions. It appeals only to moderns who are concerned about their lifestyles. In many respects, its appeal is limited to certain areas. The CHP is neither old nor new. It has turned into a spineless party. Despite its rhetoric about change, it has severed its ties with all intellectual groups because of its hatred for the AK Party. It fails to refresh its ideology or organization. It suffers from certain basic problems. The society's perceptions about this party are generally negative. This is not something you can rectify with an advertisement slogan or campaign. Its electoral persuasiveness is dubious. How this party will be reorganized will be clear after the elections. The MHP has certain ideological problems. There is the Kurdish issue in this country. How this party sees nationalism is not obvious. The argument that nationalism is on the rise in Turkey is not true. Nationalism is not increasing, but become more and more lumpen. We should be grateful to the MHP leadership for warding off this lumpenization trend. Its electoral support changes within the 10- and 15-percent band. The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) had different problems. Socially, Kurds fall into two categories: those who adopt a Muslim perspective and those who adopt an ethic viewpoint. Thus, Kurds are stuck between the AK Party and the BDP. Thus, they are polarized within themselves over this categorization. Thus, the Uludere tragedy --in which 34 civilians were mistaken for terrorists and killed by military airstrikes in Şırnak's Uludere district, due to false intelligence-- was very important for the pro-BDP Kurds while it wasn't perceived as a major incident by the pro-AK Party Kurdish voters. Two-thirds of Kurds live in their own region while the rest live in Istanbul or Anatolia. The AK Party can appeal to voters in 80 out of 81 provinces while the other three parties appeal to three distinct geographical regions. The main problem for the pro-Kurdish political movement is that it fails to appeal to all voters across the country."Concerning the question whether the recent tension will affect the AK Party's electoral support, Ağırdır says:
"For the voters to change their affiliations, there should be a stronger promise. This is already what I mean with lack of political competition. The society's sensitivities are increasing; for this reason, we talk about a trapezoidal curve. As no other party offers any utopia, this does not lead to a change of preferences."When asked: "You say voter banks do not change much without a radical change. The Gezi Park protests and the plan to close down prep schools have made a tremendous impact, creating dissension inside the AK Party's voter bank. Aren't these sufficiently radical changes?" Ağırdır gave the following answer:
"We took to the streets eight days after the Gezi Park protests started. The AK Party's electoral support saw the most radical drop in the 2006-2013 period. However, as the protests continued and changed its nature and no other issue could be brought into play, the ruling party managed to recover from this fall. The Gezi Park protests came into being inside Turkey's political scene, but they didn't nurture on the dynamics of this scene. The real dynamics of these protests were the new and emerging sensitivities of the protesters, but starting with its 5th day, the ruling party, the opposition and the media managed to link these sensitivities to the existing dynamics, thereby changing the very nature of these protests. Thus, these protests were stuck in between advocacy for and animosity against the AK Party. The real dynamics of the Gezi Park protests will be seen on every actor. The local election manifesto, announced by the AK Party last week, can be defined as an "urban manifesto." Everything Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in that manifesto was what the Gezi Park protests advocated. The rhetoric on the respect for urban identity and the people's participation in the administration was the exact reverse of what the AKP has been doing via the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ) and other means for the last 10 years. I see that manifesto as the ruling party's self-recrimination.When asked: "Every election has a specific theme, such as economy, military tutelage, security, terror, etc. What will be the main theme of this election?" he replied:
I don't believe the prep schools row will make any significant change in the votes. There are reasons for this. First, we talk about a political tension between the AK Party and the Community. Prep schools are an excuse. The Community is a network, not a hierarchical organization. It has an intellectual and entrepreneurial power, but I think its social base is weak. As it is not a hierarchical organization and has a low-density social basis, I believe, it does have a special power that can make an impact on the votes. As it has an intellectual power and strong clout, it will manage to influence the course of the AKP for the coming two years."
"When politicians and administration fail to respond to their demands, Turkish people tend to adopt two approaches. They do not just sit and watch. They do two things. They start to live with two distinct maps by separating individual and political administration codes. There is a clear mental split. There is the middle earth and the high earth, and their codes are completely different. In their individual lives, they can solve all sorts of problems, be it legitimate and illegitimate. They are not helpless. They cut down trees from the woods, evade taxes, or build houses on the publicly-owned lands; they are happy, excited and enthusiastic in their personal lives. They work with diverse cultures. But they feel desperate when it comes to the country's life because there are not common solution mechanisms. They coexist with Kurds or headscarved women at work, but they believe other Kurds in the streets want to divide the country or see other headscarved women as reactionary.In response to the question, "How can Turkey attain conciliation?" Ağırdır explained:
Second, the gulf between the values they stick to and the daily life is widening. Everyone accepts that it is wrong to run red lights, but the number of those who do this in their lives increases. People create legitimacy for this violation as they know other people will still do it. The sense of social survival is extremely powerful. People are rejoiced to see Prime Minister say "one minute," but they do not respond to him when he says, "Let us go and fight."
Will we eliminate these differences or lose hope and maintain the status quo? Political attitudes may change depending on whether another party will come up with a different utopia. Or else we cannot expect a different change.
Political groups in Turkey have profound delusions about each other. For instance, there is a group of people who feel tense in every debate about religious matters. This is because they are the products of the education system for the last 90 years. On other hand, there are groups who are disturbed to hear references to conservatives, political Islam or the left, and their sentiments have accumulated since the Cold War years. These ideological groups do not have clear knowledge about what other groups want. They do not read journals published by other groups. They nurture suspicions about each other. Quarrels, not discussions, dominate confrontations between these groups. We need to make the political scene more natural. Democratization of politics does not consist only of lowering or elimination of election thresholds. For this reason, I pay visits to all political parties, calling on them to make the political scene more natural. We need to purify and democratize the legislation related to associations and public assemblies. We don't know each other, and this ignorance does not bread an atmosphere for conciliation. This applies both to the AK Party and the Gezi Party protesters."
"The AK Party's opponents, supporters and Erdoğan claim that the party relies on religiosity. But the AK Party's voter bank actually sits on change. In Turkey, the rate of those who define themselves as religious is 75 percent. However, only 27 percent of Turkish people describe their lifestyle as religious and conservative. Our survey finds only 12 percent of people really lead pious lifestyles. The rate of those who suggest, "We must reintroduce Shariah laws," is only 1 percent. Therefore, the main axis is change."Published on Medialog Platform, 03 December 2013, Tuesday
