Stability unlikely

Amanda Paul

Based on election surveys, last Sunday's local elections were not expected to deliver any groundbreaking results despite the fact that many people were wishing for such a thing.

Yet, ultimately the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) did better than many people believed was possible, particularly given an ongoing corruption scandal.

Today the AKP remains by far the strongest party in Turkey. Unfortunately, despite a brave fight in Ankara, the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) showed that it had once again failed to inspire society to vote for it, although there are clearly large segments of the AKP's vote base which would never consider voting for the CHP for ideological reasons. Hence there is an urgent need for new political blood in Turkey. Not just politicians but parties, and most obviously a new center-right party.

When assessing why the AKP was so successful, a number of points stand out. Firstly, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP remain genuinely popular with many segments of society. These parts of society identify with the AKP; they believe their improved socioeconomic status and social recognition was only possible thanks to the AKP. They are afraid of losing this in the event that the AKP loses ground. Hence a vote by these folks was always guaranteed. Second, Erdoğan is a marvelous showman and he carried out a brilliant campaign. He managed to sell his story of “dark forces conspiring to oust him from power” superbly.

Third is the AKP's propaganda machinery, which now includes several television stations and was working overtime during the campaign. Fourthly, the AKP still gets kudos for its economic success story despite the economy wobbling a little over the past few months. Lastly, but very importantly, is the fact that Turkey's opposition forces are weak and do not come from the right ideological background to represent an alternative. It is traditionally very difficult for the majority of conservative and central right voters to vote for the main opposition CHP.

With such support and such a strong mandate, Erdoğan has the opportunity to do good things and move ahead with important political and economic reforms, as well as take steps to get democracy back on track, starting with unblocking Twitter and YouTube. Unfortunately, this does not seem very likely and Sunday's elections seem unlikely to bring political stability, which many Turks yearn for, back to the country, nor bring the government back onto the path of a pluralistic democracy.

So far Erdoğan has cited his first priority as punishing his enemies. Hence a witch hunt seems set to be the order of the day, with most people expecting further purges within the police and the judiciary in order to fully eradicate the “parallel state.” Furthermore, this now seems certain to be extended to organizations linked to Fethullah Gülen's Hizmet movement, which will then create further turmoil in the country.

How the Hizmet movement will respond remains to be seen but it is not unlikely that it may try to shame the government in the lead-up to the presidential and parliamentary elections, despite the fact that the result of the local elections seem to demonstrate that Hizmet, despite have millions of supporters in Turkey, was not able to have any serious impact on the way Turks voted.

So, all in all we can expect Erdoğan's war to continue and unfortunately the biggest loser will be democracy. Yet, he should not expect this road to be smooth. The polarization of the country, which the AKP's policies have significantly contributed to, has left more than half of Turkey angry and very anxious about their own futures and that of their country. If you combine this with increasing resistance and activism among Turkey's youth, it seems the stage is increasingly set for resistance within society against further restrictions against freedoms. These Turks embrace democratic values and are ready to defend their rights. They did so during the Gezi Park protests in 2013 and, for the first time in the history of Turkey, stood up against electoral fraud in the aftermath of the local elections. Hence we can expect a much greater involvement from this part of society in the coming months and weeks if the AKP continues to lead Turkey away from the path of democracy and values.

Published on Today's Zaman, 01 April 2014, Tuesday