DOMESTIC POLITICS 15 DAYS BEFORE THE ELECTIONS

Ecevit is reluctant to enhance popularity at the expense of Turkish soldiers’ blood in Kosovo. The sharply rising popularity of the DSP makes even ANAP consider measures during the election period. Co-operation between the DSP and ANAP for local elections has not worked so far, but should not be ruled out as a last minute surprise of the ruling front to be in the post-election period. It would be a good arrangement to prepare Turkey for the new millennium.

Political parties’ chairmen passed the 9-day Sacrifice holiday by campaigning for the elections that are only a fortnight away. PM Ecevit told journalists on board an aircraft on his way to Kayseri for election canvassing that he was torn three ways concerning his work – his duty as Prime Minister, election campaigning as party chairman and Kosovo.

Nato’s assurance of finishing off this job within a week having been proved wrong, the third part of Ecevit’s preoccupations is sure to keep him busy until the elections and beyond. Will it add to his popularity with another achievement of the Turkish Armed Forces in international affairs and battlefields, is not yet known. PM Ecevit is quite outspoken about not wishing such a success at the expense of the bloodshed of Turkish and other soldiers in Kosovo, even though a mechanised and reinforced Turkish battalion and more, if necessary, are standing by in Mamak, ready to be shipped to Kosovo. This is a commitment to Nato by Turkey as a State, rather than anything to do with domestic policy developments.

Opinion polls unanimously show the DSP as the victor

Neither does Ecevit need such a costly victory for the elections after the arrest of Abdullah Ocalan and other achievements in the international field. The suspension by London of the PKK’s mouthpiece Med TV, the arrest in Germany of the "Black Voice" (the notorious self-styled caliph, Metin Kaplan), the steps Athens is reluctantly but necessarily taking to curb PKK activities in the Lavrion refugee camp are enough for Ecevit’s popularity at the elections. These remarkable achievements to curb PKK terrorism after 15 years of strife are only a few of his successes in a short time in power.

At the last elections the DSP had two main obstacles in its way to win over leftist votes. One was that the CHP was disseminating throughout the country that the DSP was a one-man show. Ecevit was ruling the party with his wife as the Deputy Chairperson and the DSP had no one else but the Ecevits. The nearly two-year rule by Ecevit proved it to be a fallacy. The DSP ministers in both the Yilmaz Government and today have proved to be honest and capable administrators.

The second criticism was that Ecevit was the stumbling block for unity on the left. Even though CHP Chairman Deniz Baykal offered unity of the two parties under Ecevit’s leadership the latter did not accept by remarking that such artificial mergers were not useful. The people would achieve the unity of the left at the polls. He retained the DSP’s independent identity before the 1995 elections when it was an insignificant small party that had difficulties in transcending the 10% national threshold.

PM Ecevit claims now in his election campaign that the DSP became the first party of the left at the 1995 elections and that it will become the first party of Turkey at the forthcoming elections. What’s more, all the Gallup polls, which are not allowed to be published during the election period, confirm this claim. Most of the undecided electors have now made up their minds and favour Ecevit at the polls. Also, several people have forgone their previous favourites and are now siding with the DSP, according to the Gallup results.

ANAP is also worried about Ecevit’s rising star

This trend has now become telling on Ecevit’s political ally, Mesut Yilmaz’s ANAP too. At a time when all election winds were blowing for the DSP, Mesut Yilmaz told Ertugrul Ozkok of Hurriyet (31^st) that ANAP would emerge as the first party from the elections and it was not the wild guess of a politician. Yilmaz carefully refrains from making such ostentatious and exaggerated claims that most politicians resort to. Asked on what basis he was making such a claim he said, "According to our calculations, the DSP will not be able to gain any seats from 40 provinces. It has to increase its votes by 500% in order to have its candidates elected from these provinces and it is simply impossible."

Mesut Yilmaz admits that the wind in big cities is blowing in the DSP’s favour, but he underlines that more votes are needed to be elected from the bigger constituencies than the smaller ones. "Whereas we only need 17% of the total votes (to get our candidate elected from the small constituencies)," notes the ANAP Chairman, "the DSP needs 22% (in big cities)." (It is because proportional representation works more effectively in big cities, whereas in small constituencies the election system based on proportional representation works like absolute majority, as it does at the mayoral elections. – V.U.)

According to ANAP’s analysis of the Gallup poll returns, there are two axes of votes. One is the ANAP-DSP axis and the other is the FP-DYP-MHP axis. The CHP apparently does not even figure in ANAP’s election calculations. It is because Deniz Baykal is such a clever (not to say shifty) politician that most people do not know in which category to put that party. So the flow of votes takes place within these axes, with the CHP’s election chances being anyone’s guess. In other words, ANAP loses its votes to the DSP and vice versa. Likewise, the changes within the other axis take place among the three parties above.

ANAP’s surveys show that the DSP-ANAP axis will receive 43% of the total votes. If ANAP wants to increase its votes it has to do something to get them from the DSP. Ertugrul Ozkok asked Mesut Yilmaz, "Will you, under these conditions, attack the DSP." The answer was an outright "No." Asked why he was critical of the Ecevit Government recently, Yilmaz said, "In the places I have visited there were complaints that ongoing investments had come to a standstill. That’s what I voiced. My local party organisation told me that the DYP had receded greatly in popularity, but the DSP was stealing votes from us. That is why I criticised the DSP. But despite that I will not challenge Ecevit or the DSP. It would be wrong for both our past (practice) and for the future."

Asked if he was sorry that he had made an arrangement with Tansu Ciller and mutually shelved the parliamentary investigation files against themselves, Mesut Yilmaz said, "There was nothing else we could do. They (the DYP) told me that Baykal was plotting against us and trying to send us both to the Supreme Court. So I agreed to co-operate with the DYP for mutually shelving the investigation files provided that the armour of parliamentary immunity (inviolability) under Article 83 of the Constitution be amended. We even inserted this as a condition in the Investigation Committee’s report. But the DYP later acted against this condition. In other words, we were deceived."

Asked if he would attack Tansu Ciller in the remaining two weeks Mesut Yilmaz said, "In determining our election strategy we have established that the people are sick and tired of politics. They do not trust politicians. They think that politicians have forgotten national issues and the people’s problems and only bicker among themselves.

"When this is the case, you either carry on along the same path by saying that the public are mistaken, or you draw up a new strategy with self-criticism. We chose the path of self-criticism. Some tell us that we should be tough and that that is the way to increase popularity. But even though quarrelling may pay we will not resort to it."

About the election calculations, Mesut Yilmaz says, "In my opinion, the Virtue Party is making preparations to become the official opposition party after the elections. That is why it is putting emphasis on local elections." Yilmaz believes that ANAP will get the mayoral seat in Istanbul after a tough competition with the FP. "At the moment, the Virtue Party is two points ahead of us (in Istanbul), but we will close the gap and overtake them," said the ANAP Chairman to Ozkok.

Last minute co-operation at local elections?

It was a pity that ANAP and the DSP could not reach a consensus for the local elections in big cities. The DSP should have left the big metropolitan mayoral seats, at least Istanbul and Izmir to ANAP, in exchange for that party’s support to its candidate in Ankara, but former Finance Minister Zekeriya Temizel’s nomination from the DSP for the mayor of Istanbul was a blow to such arrangements. This may result in a loss of these seats to the other axis and these metropolitan mayoral seats are exceedingly important for the smooth functioning of the State Administration in Turkey in the post election period.

Even though this opportunity is lost now, both certain State agencies and private opinion poll companies are constantly taking the pulse of the people on the eve of the elections. If the analysis of these reports indicates that ANAP’s candidates are far ahead of the DSP’s candidates in Istanbul and Izmir, there may be a last minute surprise development in this regard. In other words, the withdrawal of other candidates from the mayoral elections in Istanbul may go beyond an April fool’s joke by Ali Talip Ozdemir as far as the DSP’s candidate goes.

Such a co-operation does exist in practice between ANAP and the DSP at local elections in many small places, but big metropolitan municipalities are what really count for a harmonious administration locally and centrally after April. uras@ada.net.tr,  April 2^nd, 1999