WHAT IS HAPPENING IN TURKEY: ASCERTAINMENT OF DAMAGE AFTER POLL

By Ugur Tezcan

After months of political turmoil and corruption scandals, Turkey's most controversial local elections are finally over. These local elections have been the toughest, the most polarizing and dividing in the country's political history. PM Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) declared a 46-percent win, but ensuing results indicated that AKP won 43-percent of the vote. Erdogan didn't wait to make his balcony speech until results have been verified by the Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey (aka YSK) and stated that the opponents "will pay!"

Not so surprisingly, Erdogan's ruling party wasn't the only one to call election results a victory. Three other opposition parties; Republican People's Party (CHP), Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) also declared the local elections a success based on their gains and overall performance. These four parties won about 95-percent of the vote. Other political parties lost voters to major players of the game due mainly to the nature of this highly polarized election.

The 2014 local elections have been peculiar in many regards. So unique that I believe an analysis and ascertainment of damage is indispensable for various reasons. Such an analysis will shed light on the fate of upcoming elections in Turkey.
Local elections have never been as important and vital (if not more) as general elections in modern Turkish history like it was this time. After all, people would simply vote to decide who is going to pick up their trash. However, embattled Erdogan's extraordinary reaction to graft probes, which erupted only two months before the election, his following bellicose and polarizing rhetoric as well as excessive use of ostensibly nationalist arguments changed the face of local elections. For this reason, Erdogan did not hesitate to opt for a strategy of dividing the country into loyalists and traitors. Such rhetoric has become Erdogan's first and foremost tactic in an effort to thwart the corruption probes and secure the loyalty of his supporters. Erdogan ratcheted up the pressure and stakes so that all of his slogans created a sense of 'consistency' and 'fixed perception' among followers. Campaign slogans such as "foreign powers," "dirty international media," "blood lobby," "vampires," "blood suckers," "ravenous  (opponents)," "(bloodsucking) leeches," "viruses," "Second War of Independence," "interest lobbies," "international masterminds," "parallel state," "no surrender," "pawns of international networks," "traitors," "spies," "global assassination attempt," "Hashashins (an ancient group of assassins)," "fuddled (opponents)," "coup supporters,"  "hollow saint," "fake prophet," and "those who worship people" helped shape the minds of AK party followers and other undecided yet religiously inspired and nationalistically oriented voters. When someone dared to criticize Erdogan's handling of the corruption probes, pro-AKP media, AKP Trolls (AK Party's paid army of social media users), and some loyal supporters utilized the same set of virulent verbal attacks crafted by Erdogan himself to block criticism, divert attention, and defame and silence that person.

Erdogan's second yet highly influential tactic was to use the ballot box as a mechanism to get acquitted from the corruption accusations and bribe allegations and to divert attention from leaked tapes that allegedly showed members of the government, including Erdogan himself and his son, laundering millions of dollars. Immediately after disabling the judiciary and the police he kicked off his election campaign with the abovementioned slogans and told his followers through AKP-controlled media that the "National Will" (referring to people who will vote for him in the upcoming municipal elections) will acquit his government. Critics and opposition parties, however, stressed that people who are implicated in corruption and theft can only be cleared at the court, not at the ballot box. This, however, did not stop Erdogan to turn local polls into some sort o referendum to decide if claims of corruption are approved by public or not. As I mentioned at the beginning, when Erdogan's party got 43-percent of the votes, he didn't lose time to make his balcony speech along with close family members and other government members who were accused of corruption. In his speech he said "our people gave a clear message" and thanked citizens for "giving support to new Turkey's Independence War." His comments followed by a promise that his opponents "will pay" and that they [government] will "enter their [followers of the Hizmet movement and critics] dens." Before the election, PM Erdogan invited every government official, prosecutor, judge, and social group member, who criticized his rhetoric and the way he handled graft probes, to form a political party and challenge him at the ballot box instead. This attitude continued after the elections when he invited Hasim Kilic, Turkey's top judge, to take off his (judge) gown and start a political party when Kilic accused PM Erdogan and his government of committing "a corruption of conscience" against justice.

Erdogan's use of similar tactics, when Gezi riots erupted just several months ago, had already increased the divide between his religious, conservative supporters and seculars, liberals, Alawis, Kurds, and nationalists in the country in a way that undermined social cohesion. Now, with his reaction to corruption cases and putting the blame on another religious group called the Hizmet (aka Gulen Movement) movement, the largest and most influential spiritual group in Turkey which transcends the borders of Turkey with its schools and other social institutions, Erdogan's towering us-against-them discourse has even divided Muslims in the country with distinct lines for the first time in modern Turkish history. His incessant chastising efforts of the largest and most influential spiritual group, which didn't want to side with an Islamist government that is allegedly corrupted, created such a threatening and alienating environment that even surpassed those inflicted upon the movement by secularist Kemalist regime for the past few decades. Erdogan labeled this spiritual group as "Hashashins," "viruses," "parallel state," "pawns of international networks," "malignant tumor," "blood suckers," and told his supporters that they (his government) will "break their hands," "enter their dens," and "crush them." Fethullah Gulen himself stated that "what they are seeing today is 10 times worse than what they saw during the military coups," adding that this time they faced "similar treatment [as seen during the military coups] but at the hands of civilians who they think follow the same faith as them." Erdogan's government purged thousands of police officers and prosecutors who are involved in the graft investigations claiming they are all members of the Gulen Movement and "part of a global assassination attempt" against his government. Businesses close to Gulen Movement have been harrassed by the Department of Treasury with unnecessary investigations. Members of the Gulen Movement have been invited to leave the movement's institutions and join them [AK Party] and asked to disobey their "elder brothers and sisters." Erdogan asked all Turkish embassies to convince foreign countries to close the Turkish Schools operated by the Gulen Movement. He even called some of the presidents, including President Obama, himself. These requests have, of course, been ignored by Turkish ambassadors and foreign Presidents. All university preparation institutions called 'dershanes' and study centers in Turkey, majority of which belongs to Gulen Movement, have been closed. In addition, Erdogan's AK Party encouraged all the other Islamic groups to support the government and sign a declaration against the Gulen Movement. Some of the religious groups accepted the invitation and blamed the Hizmet Movement for being anti-government and for mixing religion with politics not realizing that they themselves are signing off on a political declaration to show that they are siding with the government! These are things that have never been attempted even by the secularist military and civilian elites before.

Erdogan's tactics to win the local elections were so dividing and polarizing that it has even divided neighborhoods and families. There are a lot of families in which some members support AKP and some are actively volunteer in the non-profit or for-profit institutions of the Gulen Movement. Erdogan's strategies gave rise to arguments among family members and created resentment, hostility, bitterness, and social disharmony among fathers, sons, moms, daughters, and son-in-laws, etc. In the same line, daily newspaper Hürriyet, which has a mainstream, liberal, nationalist and secularist outlook, recently published an open letter to PM Erdogan stating "we expect you to not discriminate between citizens and institutions as the prime minister of 76 million people." The letter added "whatever percentage of votes you get, it should be your and all of our duty after the elections to defuse the dangerous polarization and the tension that has spread throughout the whole country."

This election has also been unique in the history of modern Turkish democracy in terms of the amount of election abnormalities that have been reported by people.  Amid Internet crackdowns and Twitter bans before, during, and after the election, people found alternate ways to access the social media in an effort to voice their opinions as well as to post pictures of hundreds of burned ballot boxes and votes that belonged to opposition parties and to share altered lists comparing what they have submitted to the Supreme Electoral Council and what has been released to the public. In Ankara where the competition was stiff, Interior Minister visited the Supreme Electoral Council with his men with no explanations to the public, which then followed by AKP's sudden lead in the city. These are just a few of the abnormalities that have been reported. In most major cities there were power outages during official vote counts. When asked for an explanation, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources said a cat that entered a power distribution unit was the cause of controversial power blackouts that affected 35 cities throughout the day. Interestingly enough, a government insider named 'fuatavni', who became a Twitter phenomena in a short period of time reaching over 800,000 followers, provided constant stream of information regarding how Erdogan and his government is allegedly planning to sabotage the election. Right before the election, Fuat Avni warned public and opposition parties that Erdogan allegedly ordered his advisors to organize a group of people to alter the counts before they are submitted to the Supreme Electoral Council, distribute already-stamped ballots to their supporters, cause power blackouts, and bribe ballot box officials who are close their worldview. When similar abnormalities have been reported following the elections, Fuat Avni told his followers that he did his part by revealing plans, but nobody took him seriously.

Now that Turkey's most polarizing elections have passed, the controversy, debates, and Twitter bans still continue to divide an already divided people. It is not hard to see that the Turkish politics and democratic life are certainly at a critical stage. Can a government be victorious at the ballot box and claim to be acquitted from corruption probes? Can a municipal election be claimed a "War of Independence" against government's opponents? For Erdogan, the answer is 'yes.' I guess we will have to wait and see what the time will say as the ultimate judge. After all, people can be swayed, misled, or convinced, but the truth always wins.