Presidential vote reveals Erdogan’s political balancing act

Turkish prime minister appears to have won support from extremes of political spectrum by appealing to both Kurds and nationalists.

A woman takes pictures during a rally for Turkey’s prime minister and presidential candidate, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Istanbul on August 8, 2014. Murad Sezer / Reuters

SAMSUN, TURKEY // Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads into Turkey’s first direct presidential election on Sunday as the only candidate to have successfully courted voters on opposite sides of the political spectrum: Kurds and Turkish nationalists.

Mr Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics for the past decade as prime minister. With opinion polls giving him a roughly 20-point lead, the only question is whether he will win in the first round or in a runoff later this month.

Many Kurds, who make up nearly one-fifth of Turkey’s approximately 80 million people, will vote for Selahettin Demirtas, the candidate of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), at least in the first round. But just as many, especially those living outside the country’s Kurdish-majority south-east, are likely to choose Mr Erdogan.

The nationalist vote, meanwhile, is likely to be contested between Mr Erdogan and the joint candidate of the two main opposition parties, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, whose support among voters hovers at about 35 per cent compared to Mr Erdogan’s 55-56 per cent, according to recent polls.

To most Kurds, Mr Erdogan appears to be the only mainstream politician capable of steering the country through a volatile peace process with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a leftist militant group. The PKK launched an armed struggle for Kurdish autonomy and greater rights in 1984 that has left more than 30,000 people dead.

A ceasefire declared in March last year by the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, has largely held, although the militants have stressed that it will collapse without further reforms.

In and around Giresun, a town of about 100,000 on the Black Sea, the region Mr Erdogan hails from, it is hazelnut harvest season and the local population of Kurds, normally negligible, is growing due to an influx of migrant workers like Neslihan Atlihan, 23.

Being away from home, Ms Atlihan, who came to Giresun from the south-east at the beginning of August, will not be able to vote in Sunday’s election. If she could, she said, she would have ticked off the box with the prime minister’s name.

“We’ll vote for him because of the peace process,” she said.

Of Mr Demirtas, she said: “We don’t like him, because he’s [with] the PKK ... they killed lots of soldiers who are Kurdish but loyal to the government.”

Her sister, Semiah, 22, will vote for Mr Erdogan because, she said, “he’s good for jobs”.

While trying to win over the Kurdish vote, Mr Erdogan has also had to allay the concerns of mainstream voters, especially Turkish nationalists.

In 2009, a poorly managed attempt at repatriating a small group of PKK fighters from northern Iraq backfired after Turkish TV aired images of the militants, still formally considered terrorists by Turkey, the US and the EU, being welcomed as heroes by Kurdish crowds. In Giresun and along much of the Black Sea coast, opposition to the peace process, and to the Kurdish political movement, continues to run high.

In Samsun, a senior politician from Mr Demirtas’ party was punched in the face when he made an appearance in 2010. Mr Demirtas does not campaign in the region.

Many locals are not prepared for the kind of concessions the peace talks will likely involve: an amnesty for most PKK fighters, greater linguistic rights for the Kurds, as well as some degree of autonomy for the south-east.

“People here are the ones who’re most loyal to the idea of the republic, to Ataturk, and to Turkish independence,” said Ufuk Kekin, a newspaper columnist in Giresun. Since the start of the Kurdish conflict three decades ago, the city has lost 120 young men, army conscripts, to the fighting.

“There’s very serious concern here about the country splitting, people are allergic to separatism.”

Adnan Eren, 54, a real estate agent in Ordu, said he would vote Erdogan, but fears that the peace process has been mismanaged.

“People here might resist,” he said during a tea break in a narrow alley. “If the PKK killed your brother, would you let them come back to Turkey, give them an amnesty?”

“Erdogan will give those people new rights, more autonomy,” said Okan, 22, a student, who declined to give his last name. “They’ll try to separate, to make a new Kurdistan.”

On July 10, Turkey’s parliament, dominated by Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), adopted a law exempting officials involved in the PKK’s disarmament and reintegration from prosecution, finally placing the process on legal footing.

Kurdish politicians, however, said the government has failed to prepare Turks for the compromises needed to ensure peace.

“For 30 years, Turks have been taught that the fight for Kurdish rights equals treason and terror,” said Zeki Alaca, a HDP district boss in Samsun. “The AKP has not put an end to this.”

AKP officials make the case for reconciliation, but only in the broadest terms.

“Our position is to meet at the common denominator,” said Hasan Aydin, a local party boss and former MP. “We need to include everyone in the solution.”

Mr Eren, the real estate agent, said his son would soon have to join the army for compulsory military service.

“As long as there’s war and terror, I don’t want him to go,” he said.

There needs to be a solution, he said, but it cannot involve too many concessions to the PKK. He might be able to live with a partial amnesty, but freedom for Ocalan, one of the Kurdish movement’s key demands, is a red line.

“I don’t accept this,” he said. “No one does. No one is ready for it.”