As Turkey is gearing up for one of the most momentous elections in recent history, early campaigning has shown that any issue — from national security to foreign policy — can quickly turn into campaign material.
The attack by Kurdish militants on a Turkish police guesthouse in the southern province of Mersin on Sept. 26, which killed one police officer and wounded another, seemed ominous to many. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) armed wing claimed responsibility for the attack, which brought back dark memories of the period from June to November of 2015. After the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority in the June 2015 polls, the country descended into chaos amid a string of attacks by outlawed militant groups including the PKK and the Islamic State. The spree of violence ended after redo elections in November, in which AKP regained its parliamentary majority.
Following the Mersin attack, Turkish police rounded up around 30 people, including some main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) officials working at the Mersin mayor’s office, over alleged links with terrorist groups. Erdogan lost no time in slamming the CHP over the attack, denouncing the party as a “national security problem.”
Amping up his campaign immediately following his return from New York last week, Erdogan dispatched his party’s heavyweights across the country, announcing an election motto: “the century of Turkey.”
The centerpiece of his campaign will likely be election “candies” bestowed on “various segments of voters,” as Mustafa Sonmez reported, adding that these lavish economic gestures come “at the risk of wrecking public finances.” Yet, their potential success remains dubious, as Turkey’s breakneck inflation is poised to soar further after his pledge to cut policy rates to single digit numbers by the end of the year. The Central Bank already shocked the market by slashing the basis rate from 13% to 12% last week.
The CHP-led opposition bloc, in turn, doesn’t seem to need Erdogan’s salvos to stumble. Its failure to agree on a presidential candidate with less than nine months to go to the elections shows its ability to shoot itself in the foot. In-house disagreements over potential candidates have become more visible this week after Meral Aksener, the leader of Good Party, put the brakes on CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s aspirations to run against Erdogan. In a thinly veiled reference to Kilicdaroglu’s relatively slimmer chances of winning against Erdogan compared to CHP’s Istanbul and Ankara mayors, Aksener stressed the need for a candidate “who can win.”
The bloc, known as the “table of six” and which includes Aksener, is expected to meet again Sunday for a new round of talks, but according to insiders the prospects for a potential consensus on a joint candidate seem dim.
Rubbing salt in the wound, as Andrew Wilks reported, the third political alliance that includes the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) — the third largest party in the parliament — was officially launched this week, “leaving observers wondering about its potential impact on what was previously a two-horse race.”
“With the foundation of a new alliance, the opposition will face the risk of splitting its vote. Central to preventing this will be a presidential candidate that both opposition blocs can support,” Wilks observed.
We’ll keep our ears to the ground for the bickering that is sure to take place between members of various parliamentary groups at a reception tomorrow night marking parliament’s return from its summer recess.
The parliament is expected to go on another recess shortly thereafter, but in the meantime international sights will be set on whether the AKP government will bring Finland and Sweden’s NATO accession bid to the parliamentary agenda for ratification.
In a relatively positive sign, Ankara has been silent on the matter since Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reiterated Ankara’s threat to block the expansion before his trip to New York for the UN General Assembly earlier this month. Notably, there was no mention of the issue during Erdogan’s televised interview on Wednesday. Given the fact that Erdogan only appears on pro-government channels for national interviews in highly choreographed settings, this silence may signal that diplomatic contacts between Turkish officials and their foreign counterparts are proceeding in a positive direction.
In a further such sign, Stockholm lifted a de-facto arms embargo against Ankara that was put in place in 2019 due to the civilian toll of a Turkish military operation against Kurdish groups in northern Syria. Turkish media reported that a Swedish delegation would visit Turkey in the coming days for further talks.
Not surprisingly, alongside Turkey, the only remaining country that has yet to ratify the Nordic enlargement is Viktor Victor Orban’s Hungary.
If ratified before the parliament goes into another recess, Ankara’s nod can possibly facilitate the Turkish bid to acquire new F-16s and modernization kits from the United States and also ease the latest tensions between the NATO allies over Turkey’s territorial disputes with Greece and Cyprus.
As we reported earlier this week, “The Eastern Mediterranean conflict is steadily turning into a fresh strain” in already-troubled ties between Turkey and the United States, as “Ankara sees deepening defense cooperation between the United States, Greece and Cyprus as Washington’s departure from its traditional policy to stay neutral in the territorial dispute between the three countries.”
Erdogan and Cavusoglu doubled down on the matter on Thursday, announcing Ankara would send more troops and arms to the Turkish Cypriots in retaliation for Washington’s decision to lift the decade-long arms embargo against ethnically divided Cyprus, as Nazlan Ertan reported.
Another flashpoint that risks escalation is deepening economic cooperation between Turkey and Russia amid Western sanctions. As first reported by Bloomberg, Turkey’s public lenders this week halted the use of the Russian payment system known as Mir caving to pressure by Washington.
However, Erdogan signaled that economic ties with Russia are set to grow further. He said that Russian officials were considering taking on the construction of Turkey’s second nuclear plant, in addition to the Akkuyu Nuclear Plant which is currently under construction.