Turkey's Erdogan 'needs to understand protests'

The prime minister is eager to find out how the protest movement might affect next year's local and presidential elections, analysts said yesterday.

ISTANBUL // Faced with sustained protests against his government, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is embarking on a two-pronged strategy that combines tough talk with efforts to understand the protesters' grievances.
Only days after warning that his patience with the protesters was running out, Mr Erdogan is to meet representatives of the protest movement tomorrow, a sign that the prime minister is keen to find out what drives the unrest.
Bulent Arinc, a deputy prime minister and government spokesman said after a cabinet meeting yesterday that the request for the meeting came from the protesters. It was not immediately known who would represent the protest movement in the meeting.
The prime minister and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are eager to fathom how the protest movement might affect next year's local and presidential elections, analysts said yesterday.
The premier's softer approach could be seen as implicit recognition that his stance needs revision if he is to fulfill his ambitions for the presidency.
"All politicians have to read this street movement correctly. If they don't manage to understand it properly, it may cost them votes," said Adil Gur, head of the independent polling firm A&G.
Mr Erdogan cannot afford to ignore the movement,even though the AKP won almost 50 per cent of the votes in the last general election in 2011, Mr Gur said. "If Erdogan wants to win the presidency, he may need votes from groups outside the AKP voters."
The street protests were triggered by government plans to redevelop Gezi Park in Istanbul but have grown into the biggest political challenge facing Mr Erdogan since he came to power 10 years ago.
Three people have died and nearly 5,000 have been injured in clashes between protesters and the police since May 31.
Demonstrators, thousands of whom have been occupying Gezi Park, say they feel marginalised by Mr Erdogan's conservative agenda and an increasingly authoritarian style of government. In a setback for the protesters, Abdullah Gul yesterday signed a controversial government bill restricting the sale of alcohol into law
The prime minister has sent out mixed messages, combining appeals to the protesters to discuss their grievances with him directly with statements calling the demonstrators looters and warning that his patience is limited.
Mr Erdogan hinted last week that his strong words were an effort to keep his conservative followers happy.
"If we would remain indifferent faced with such a thing, the 50 per cent that voted for the AKP would ask me tomorrow why I didn't stand up for them," Mr Erdogan told reporters accompanying him on a foreign visit last week.
Bulent Akarcali, a government minister in the 1990s, said it was crucial for Mr Erdogan to keep the AKP behind him ahead of next year's elections. "What he needs is the unity of his party," Mr Akarcali said.
On Sunday, Mr Erdogan unofficially started the campaign for local elections in March by giving six speeches in three cities in one day. He assured supporters he would stand firm against the protesters and asked them to strengthen the AKP in the elections.
"I want you to teach them a basic lesson in a democratic way, at the ballot box," Mr Erdogan said in the city of Adana.
But at the same time, with much less fanfare, the government is trying to grasp the social and political dimension of what is going on, say analysts.
Ilter Turan, a political scientist at Bilgi University in Istanbul, said Mr Erdogan seemed unsure how to deal with the protests.
"He is totally puzzled," Mr Turan said. "He doesn't quite know what to do."
According to news reports, Mr Erdogan wants pro-AKP sociologists as well as an AKP committee to study the protest movement, described by some experts as a new phenomenon in Turkish politics because it lacks leaders and an organisational structure.
Mr Erdogan's scheduled meeting with the Gezi Park demonstrators is the first time that he is contacting representatives of demonstrators.
Mr Arinc, the deputy prime minister, met members of an NGO campaigning against the building project in the park last week, but there has been no meeting so far between the government and unaffiliated protesters, who account for the majority of demonstrators.
Mr Arinc, in an apparent nod to an often-heard complaint by the protesters that the Erdogan government is out of touch with concerns of non-AKP voters, acknowledged that the government might have made mistakes and needed critics to correct them.
"Someone has to warn us, someone has to shake us," Mr Arinc said.
Mr Akarcali said that one reason why the AKP was reaching out to the protest movement was a calculation that the demonstrators were not unified in their views.
"It started out as a green movement, but then it became political," Mr Akarcali said about the original protests, which had the aim to save trees in Gezi Park. "The government is trying to separate the real ecologists from the political groups."
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