The ‘message’ of the elections

The results of the March 29 municipal elections go beyond the local scene and will have a bearing on the 2011 general elections. The “message” of the elections, however one reads it, has become the key word. Indeed, the electorate has told political parties, “You’ve got a message.” The question is how to read it. 

The biggest message has been delivered to the ruling Justice and Development (AK Party). Despite a massive campaign and the popularity of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the AK Party suffered a considerable loss. Even though the 39 percent the AK Party got is still slightly more than the total of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) put together, the ruling party performed below expectations. After three election victories in the last seven years, the AK Party was unable to maintain let alone increase its votes. According to the opposition, this is the beginning of the end for the AK Party. This might be an exaggeration, but its veracity will depend on how the AK Party leadership reads the results and whether it acts accordingly. The AK Party’s biggest losses were in the west and the east of the country. In western Anatolian cities, the AK Party lost several major cities to the CHP, its arch rival, and the CHP increased its votes considerably in İstanbul and Ankara. In eastern Kurdish-populated areas, it lost to the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the Kurdish party with ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). On both fronts, the main reason seems to be the same: identity politics. While the CHP represents the secularist-Kemalist establishment, the DTP represents a radical position on the Kurdish issue. The AK Party has never been able to reach out to the secularist constituency in Turkey. And I am not sure if it has really tried to do so. The reason for this is partly the clash of ideologies but also the fact that the AK Party has seized power in an effort to transform the military-secularist establishment in Turkey. For the first time in seven years, the CHP ran a campaign based on issues rather than pure ideology. Allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the economic crisis have been effective on the general voter. It should be noted, though, that this didn’t increase the CHP’s votes but did weaken the AK Party, with votes going to other smaller parties and independents.

The AK Party’s biggest losses came in Kurdish cities in the east. The DTP’s landslide victory, too, is related to identity politics. The DTP has virtually no “service” record to run an election on. Rather, it has the Kurdish card, which it has used effectively to question the AK Party and Prime Minister Erdoğan’s credentials to reach out to Kurdish voters. While the DTP ran a campaign based on Kurdish identity, the AK Party stayed away from the touchy issues of Kurdish identity. Its candidates, even though all of them are Kurdish, hid their Kurdish identities during the campaign. Plus, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s centrist and semi-nationalist discourse over the past year or so has been interpreted by Kurdish voters as a result of a “deal” he cut with the military. Even though the AK Party took some courageous steps such as Kurdish broadcasting, its credentials for finding a lasting solution to the Kurdish problem have been put into question.

The opposition parties, too, have been delivered a message. The message for the CHP is clear: Stay away from a politics of ideology and polarization and concentrate on a politics of issues. The CHP’s usual stance on militant secularism and Kemalism was totally absent in the campaign. Instead, CHP leader Deniz Baykal focused on corruption allegations and the impact of the global financial crisis on the Turkish economy. This shift should be welcomed as a positive step for the normalization of Turkish politics. But since we know what happened with the CHP’s so-called “headscarf initiative,” I see it as unlikely that the CHP will follow a line of policy based on issues rather than ideology.

The MHP is the on