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  Turkey Goes to the Polls: A New Election Comes with Old Problems

Turkey Goes to the Polls A New Election Comes with Old Problems

By Annette Grossbongardt in Istanbul

Part 2: Election May not Resolve Presidential Dispute

Meanwhile the head of the right-wing populist Young Party, Cem Uzan, is fishing for support by promising voters the completely utopian fairy tale that he would cut the price of diesel to 1 Turkish lira per liter (around 55 euro cents) if elected. The former businessman and media mogul, whose family is being investigated for fraud and dubious business dealings, labels Western countries as “foreign powers.” He also wants to break ties with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has supported Turkey with billions in loans since 2001.

PR experts in Turkey have dubbed Uzan “the man with the simplest, but most memorable rhetoric” and his party managed to garner around 7.2 percent of votes in the last election. Pollsters believe he could get enough this time to get seats in parliament.

The biggest paradox of this campaign is that even though the snap election was brought on by the stymied presidential poll, it might not resolve the dispute. If the AKP doesn’t get a two-thirds majority as is expected, the party will once again not be able to force its man into office.

Gül remains the official candidate, but “we won’t insist on him, if we have no choice,” says a leading member of the AKP. Even Erdogan has said he is “willing to compromise” and he’s supposedly already preparing a list of alternative candidates.

But the opposition is constantly increasing their demands for their support in parliament – they already reject any AKP candidate, even a less religious one like Gül, whose wife wears a headscarf. That must make it extremely clear to the AKP leadership just how much they lost by choosing Gül -- whose nomination was considered a provocation by Turkey’s secular forces, mainly because of his headscarf-wearing wife -- as their candidate. The party missed its opportunity to put the country’s first religious president into the palace of Ataturk, the secular founder of the republic.

Erdogan Banks on His Charisma

Now Erdogan must use his personal charisma to convince voters to support his party. “There’s no other politician with his leadership skills at the moment,” says the respected columnist Cengiz Candar, who advises former president Turgut Özal.

AKP supporters even carry posters at campaign rallies that compare Erdogan to several respected economic reformers -- including Ataturk. Erdogan is betting it all on a moderate course that emphasizes stability and growth, while offering the prospect of reforms to the justice system and more democracy. The AKP has placed liberals and even prominent left-wing candidates on the party list. He’s dropped his promise to his religious core voters to finally end the headscarf ban in state institutions -- an issue that has now been taken up by the conservative Democratic Party (DP). The DP hopes to poach many of the AKP’s more traditional supporters. But the failed merger of the party of Süleyman Demirel and Tansu Çiller with Özal’s ANAP has ruined their elections chances and they might not get any seats in parliament.

Campaign trucks mounted with loudspeakers will continue to blast their messages across the country and boats on the Bosporus will carry huge posters of Erdogan and his challenger Baykal up until 6 p.m. on Saturday. The 69-year-old leader of the CHP has made an awkward promise in the heat of campaigning: If he loses he has said he will swim to the Greek island of Rhodes -- which even from the southern port town of Marmaris is a good 50 kilometers from Turkey.

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