Yasar Yakis
While there are only a few months left before the local elections to be held on March 31 next year, political life in Turkiye has not seen the usual momentum. The ruling Justice and Development Party, known as the AKP, is implementing its preparations without making much noise. The main opposition Republican People’s Party, known as the CHP and led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, continues to lose support. Kilicdaroglu’s rival for the chairmanship of the party is Ozgur Ozel, a young and ambitious candidate, but one who is not combative. He put forward his candidacy for the party’s chairmanship only after he received Kilicdaroglu’s implicit consent.
The provincial congresses of the CHP in all provinces of Turkiye are over. In Istanbul, Kilicdaroglu’s supporters lost their majority within the party, but this does not mean that they will lose the elections in other provinces. The supporters of both Kilicdaroglu and Ozel claim that they are ahead. However, it looks as if this will be a tight election.
According to the CHP’s regulations, in case a qualified majority cannot be obtained in the first two rounds, the party chairman will be elected by simple majority in the third round.
Some 1,367 delegates are entitled to vote in the party’s general congress, which will be held on Nov. 5. Ozel claims that, among the CHP’s members of parliament, he is 45 to 55 votes ahead of Kilicdaroglu, which means that the party’s lawmakers are in favor of a change in leadership. This division indicates that those who were designated by Kilicdaroglu as members of the CHP’s administrative board constitute a majority of the appointed delegates. This reduces the number of elected delegates and increases the number of appointed ones.
As of the middle of last week, almost all delegates in 41 provinces were in favor of a change in the party structure. In 24 provinces out of 81, a majority of delegates were opposed to a change, while in 10 provinces the delegates were divided 50-50.
Kilicdaroglu last week said he would exclude from the CHP those who make statements against the party, while Ozel said that, on the contrary, he would open the doors to the “paternal house,” meaning the CHP. Kilicdaroglu’s attitude is in sharp contrast to the democratic rules within a political party.
It is clear that a majority of the party membership supports Ozel’s side, but as the voting members at the party’s congress are designated by Kilicdaroglu, the outcome may be in his favor. This is nothing but a lack of democracy within the party. Kilicdaroglu’s poor performance was demonstrated last week in a public statement he made in a party meeting. The CHP’s central committee was assessing a motion that was to be submitted to parliament. It was about the renewal of the validity of a motion to send a contingent of the Turkish army to foreign countries and to receive foreign forces in Turkiye in case of need. This is a routine practice that dates back to the time when the fight against Daesh was at its height. Therefore, the routine was maintained for the sake of formality. When the question was debated this time, Kilicdaroglu burst out and said: “I will stand against receiving foreign soldiers in Turkiye. I will kick them out. I will not betray the historical heritage that our ancestors wrote with their blood (in the 1920s).” At the end of the debate, it was agreed that “the admission of foreign soldiers to Turkiye” was to be deleted from the proposed text.
There are rumors in CHP quarters claiming that Kilicdaroglu’s entourage might intimate to him that he should bring his political life to an end. In fact, Kilicdaroglu has lost all 10 of the elections he has participated in. The difference between those elections and the coming one is that Kilicdaroglu is this time running against a contender. In the previous elections, there was no contender, but this is still an uneven competition because all the members of the party’s administrative board were appointed by Kilicdaroglu. Before some previous elections, he gave the impression that he might bring an end to his political life after the vote. However, he always changed his mind and said he would continue to fight and bring the Turkish ship to a safe harbor. However, this safe harbor is never reached.
For his part, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan keeps circumspect and talks very little about what the main opposition party is doing. He has no complaints about the way the CHP is running its affairs. If the domestic political campaign continues to be run the way it currently is, the AKP is likely to win the local elections in many provinces. The coalition of six parties that tried to coordinate their efforts before the general election in May this year mostly played into the hands of splinter parties. They gained several seats in parliament thanks to this coalition.
The splinter parties that were left out of the six-party coalition may have drawn lessons from the May elections and could cooperate more easily in the forthcoming local elections. The dynamics of the local elections are different from the general election because local leaders have greater influence in these votes.
