openDemocracy: Turkish centre-right: soon over-crowded?

Erdoğan’s managerial genius has allowed him to survive several political crises that would uproot most governments. In each crisis, he strengthened and personalized his grip on power. Creating political scenarios reminiscent of Agamben’s state of exception, he targeted the group at the centre of any crisis, turning them public enemies by dehumanizing them in the eyes of his electorate. For the Gezi protests, he blamed secular-leftist groups for organizing a revolt against the elected government, working with – several – foreign governments to this end. For the corruption scandal that followed the Gezi protests, he blamed the Gülenists, his former ally, whom he then subjected to radical recriminations and effectively annihilated. For the resurgence of the decades-old Kurdish issue, he threw the pro-Kurdish and liberal-leftist HDP, a legal political entity in the Turkish Parliament, into the fire. He took on several western governments and portrayed them as global powers with sinister plans on Turkey. In order to exercise political influence he has also instrumentalised some transnational state apparatuses, such as the Diyanet, in many countries.

All in all, Erdoğan survived in power but with the cost of sacrificing major elements of moderate politics and almost all of his former allies. Infusing Islamist and ethno-nationalist elements with his ever-green populism, he skilfully re-positioned himself further on the right and carried – or rather dragged – most of his electorate with him. Yet, Erdoğan has to sustain a huge effort to keep his electoral base in their new position. To consolidate this, he has used illusions of an augmented grandeur and its enemies (including domestic collaborators). [...]

Four potential rivals can be anticipated in forthcoming general elections. Two of them are the established opposition to the AKP, while the other two are from an internal opposition. Let’s start with the latter. As President Erdoğan elevated himself to the status of undisputed leader, he side-lined old comrades but kept them on a leash for quite some time. Yet, not all of them have been terminally silenced. A former president and one of the founding trio of the AKP, Abdullah Gül, together with the former minister of economy, Ali Babacan, having maintained their credibility both in the eyes of the voters and business circles at home and abroad, are on the cusp of forming a political party. Recently Babacan resigned from the party of which he was a founding member, and publicly declared that party policies in recent years were in clear contradiction with the principles to which he had subscribed. Babacan’s resignation is likely to prompt others to follow, yet it is difficult to know how many. The problem for Erdoğan is that Babacan has been at the steering wheel of the Turkish economy during the successful years of the AKP. If the economy is now Erdoğan’s Achilles’ heel, the Babacan-Gül duo will be shooting right at it.

read the article

The Conversation: Erdoğan’s control over Turkey is ending – what comes next?

When Turkey’s currency, the lira, dropped by 20% last year, the slide risked a global crisis. Turkey is also an important NATO ally, allowing its land and air bases to be used for the alliance’s military operations into places such as neighboring Syria and Iraq. [...]

Istanbul, a city of 16 million people, accounts for one-third of Turkey’s gross domestic product and is larger than many national economies. Whoever controls Istanbul’s massive municipal budget also controls its patronage. [...]

Earlier this year, more than 1,000 Turkish academics and their colleagues overseas signed an open letter condemning Erdogan’s bombing of more than 100 targets in Kurdish areas in Syria near its borders. [...]

Whether or how quickly the end for Erdoğan may come will be determined by how united the opposition remains. It is also possible a new political party will emerge, created by former allies of Erdoğan who said their current party under his leadership “caused a serious slide in rhetoric, actions, morals and politics.”

read the article

Reuters: 'They want to kill you': Anger at Syrians erupts in Istanbul

Their store and other Syrian properties were targeted in the Kucukcekmece district of western Istanbul on the night of Saturday June 29, one of the occasional bouts of violence which Syrians say erupt against them in Turkey’s largest city.

Such large-scale clashes are rare, with only one other big attack happening this year, also in western Istanbul, in February. Small incidents are more frequently shared by Syrians on social media, and some fear tensions are on the rise. [...]

Turkey hosts more than 3.6 million Syrians, the largest population of Syrians displaced by the 8-year civil war, and Istanbul province alone has over half a million, according to Turkey’s interior ministry. [...]

That has led President Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which opened its borders to Syrians when the conflict first erupted in 2011, to increasingly highlight the number of Syrians it says have returned to northern Syrian areas now controlled by Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies.

Erdogan’s political opponents have criticized him for allowing in so many refugees, and even the new opposition mayor of Istanbul - who campaigned on a ticket of inclusiveness - has said Turks are suffering because of the Syrian influx.

read the article

Los Angeles Times: How will Turkey’s authoritarian president react to opposition’s big win in Istanbul mayoral race?

Ekrem Imamoglu of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, won 54% of the vote, soundly beating the AKP’s Binali Yildrim, who took 45%. It was a far wider margin of victory than Imamoglu achieved in the original March 31 vote.

Turnout was very high — 85% — in part reflecting public unhappiness over the recount that was ordered on technical grounds by the country’s highest electoral body, widely suspected of acting at the president’s behest.

Erdogan offered congratulations to Imamoglu, and Yildrim conceded graciously even before the votes had all been tallied. But in a sign some read as ominous, Monday-morning headlines in pro-government newspapers made no reference to the opposition victory, instead merely noting that the vote had taken place. [...]

The central government could take steps to sap Imamoglu’s administrative powers, or even invent a reason to charge him personally with a criminal offense of some kind, a fate that has befallen many of the president’s foes. [...]

Criticism of the president, once rare, burst into the open. Mustafa Yeneroglu, an AKP parliament member from Istanbul, tweeted: “We lost Istanbul because we lost moral superiority.”

read the article

Foreign Affairs: Have Turkey’s Elections Produced a Challenger to Erdogan?

Imamoglu and his rival, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, have both declared themselves Istanbul’s mayor-elect. Less than 0.2 percent of the more than eight million votes cast separates them. A recount has entered its second week, and anxiety is mounting within the opposition over whether the AKP will relinquish its quarter-century hold on Istanbul should the final tally confirm Imamoglu’s victory. [...]

Before the election, Imamoglu was a largely unknown district mayor of a far-flung Istanbul suburb. His campaign addressed everyday grievances, such as traffic congestion and job creation. Since the vote, he has shown a tougher side, holding impromptu press conferences to accuse the AKP of “acting like they’ve had their toys taken away,” although he has also tried to project a sense of normalcy to reassure a nervous public. [...]

Despite Erdogan’s theatrics, many voters went ahead and punished the AKP for policies that have unleashed soaring inflation and unemployment. Although Imamoglu refrained from attacking Erdogan, who remains Turkey’s most popular politician, he hammered a ruling elite ensconced in “their palaces” while “Istanbul is in a spiral of hunger, poverty, and unemployment.” Largely ignored by the media, Imamoglu took to Facebook to livestream visits to street markets, where he hugged fans and politely engaged AKP supporters who refused to shake his hand.

Pious voters have long shunned the centrist CHP, repelled by its rigidly secularist ideology and stodgy, elitist image. But nominating Imamoglu, a practicing Muslim who scheduled time on the campaign trail to attend Friday prayers, allowed the CHP, humbled by so many years in the political wilderness, to broaden its appeal. It last ran Ankara and Istanbul in the 1970s, and has been in the opposition in parliament since then as well.

read the article