Candidate lists and two possible surprises in Turkish vote

A total of 26 political parties submitted their parliamentary candidate lists to the Supreme Election Council (YSK) on Sunday. They faced criticism over their picks – just like in every other election. Obviously, such lists represent the outcome of vigilant plans that take many different factors into consideration. Such as it is perfectly natural in failing to address all expectations at the grassroots level and for some people to be unhappy.

Yet, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Good Party’s (IP) choices have instantly become the subject of a national debate. Attempting to attract more pro-opposition voters, the Homeland Party (MP) Chair Muharrem Ince has been comparing those candidates with his own movement’s selection. He specifically highlights a handful of candidates, which are not aligned with the values of those opposition parties, to lure away voters.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) overhauled its parliamentary candidate list more comprehensively than any other party, not fielding 65% of its current deputies. Its firm commitment to the three-term limit, an internal party policy, caused many experienced parliamentarians to sit out the next election.

The movement made up for that gap in experience by nominating all Cabinet ministers, except two, for parliamentary seats.

DEVA, GP to face backlash

The Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) and Future Party (GP) politicians, who will contest the parliamentary election on the CHP ticket, were already expected to face backlash. Nonetheless, there is no reason to expect CHP Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s deal with former AK Party members, whereby they received parliamentary nominations for endorsing the CHP chair as the opposition bloc’s presidential candidate, to create serious problems.

The bottom line is that Kılıçdaroğlu is ready to press any button to win the presidential race.

The electorate, by contrast, will speak in approximately 30 days. There are some 20 politicians from four fringe parties to whom the CHP leadership has given “guaranteed” seats. The rest have been included in candidate lists in provinces where CHP could not win any seats in 2018, hoping they would attract voters and benefit the main opposition party.

There is a heated debate over the IP’s parliamentary candidates, too. The movement lost some popular support over IP Chairperson Meral Akşener’s decision to leave and promptly rejoin the opposition bloc and it remains unable to recover. Specifically, that party may end up below the national threshold – which has been lowered to 7%. That result would not deprive the IP of parliamentary representation altogether, since it remains part of the Nation Alliance, but would amount to a serious symbolic defeat.

It goes without saying that the IP paid the price of joining the “table for six” by turning into a political movement having difficulties clearing the national threshold instead of chasing its goal of becoming Türkiye’s most popular right-wing party.

In truth, all the political parties that joined the “table” (which would have secured Kılıçdaroğlu’s bid) ended up parting ways with their ambitions and alienating their supporters. Whereas the IP’s problems receive disproportionate attention, it is important to take into consideration how DEVA and the GP’s agenda and identity have eroded because they are running on the CHP ticket. Indeed, those parties have not only failed to form effective movements but also lost ground to the CHP and the pro-PKK Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – which increasingly dominated the opposition bloc’s discourse and policies.

CHP’s bigger problem

Right now, the main opposition party has a bigger problem than the criticism it’s facing for the choice of parliamentary candidates: Receiving the endorsement of PKK “commanders” and the HDP leadership’s increasingly vocal calls for Abdullah Öcalan’s release from prison and a general amnesty for PKK terrorists. Those developments may alienate many Turkish nationalists from the CHP and the IP, benefiting the MP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in the end.

Let us recall the AK Party and MHP did not field joint parliamentary candidates in any electoral district, whereas CHP and the IP collaborated in 16 provinces. That approach has certain disadvantages, but it seems that the MHP counts on expecting to attract nationalist voters by chasing parliamentary seats everywhere. It is certainly true that MHP has a time-honored tradition of shocking pollsters on election day.

Last but not the least, most people are curious to see how Ince’s MP will perform in the 2023 parliamentary election. Seeking to attract CHP and IP voters, the former CHP heavyweight has been comparing his own party’s candidates with the lists of those opposition parties.

He hopes to attract more supporters by highlighting the ideological and identity-related contradictions within the Nation Alliance as well as exploiting discord over the choice of candidates.

The MP could pull off an election surprise by clearing the national threshold or almost reaching it. For the record, Ince’s accusations against Kılıçdaroğlu – that he is neither nationalist nor Kemalist— seem more effective than the charge of “dividing the opposition” that the main opposition party levels against the MP chair.

[Daily Sabah, April 12 2023]