How will Erdogan solve ‘terror problem’ that brought him a victory?
Kadri Gursel/Al-Monitor/November 06/15
The 49.4% of the vote the Justice and Development Party (AKP) got in the Nov. 1 elections beat all forecasts, astonishing not only Turkey and the world but the party’s own quarters as well. How the AKP was able to boost its vote by a fifth in only five months after losing its parliamentary majority with 40.8% in June is now an imperative question.
With an outcome of such an extraordinary nature, the AKP — a party supposed to have fatigued and lost some appeal after 13 years in power — must have resolved some major problem in Turkey in five months’ time or convinced part of the electorate that only the AKP could resolve that problem.
And what is this problem? For an accurate diagnosis, one needs to compare the two different Turkeys that existed ahead of the June 7 and Nov. 1 elections. There was only one new problem that emerged after June 7: the resumption of bloody clashes with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and suicide bombings blamed on the Islamic State (IS).
A relative calm preceded the June 7 polls, while the clashes between the PKK and government forces, which erupted July 24, resulted in hundreds of dead in the runup to last week’s vote. In addition, a suicide attack in Suruc on July 20, followed by twin suicide bombings in Ankara on Oct. 10, claimed a total of 134 lives, with both carnages blamed on IS.
After nearly three years of nonhostility — coupled with settlement talks between the PKK and Ankara — Turkey had abruptly descended into a spiral of violence, and coffins of soldiers and policemen arrived almost daily to provinces across the country. This new situation was, of course, bound to upend the electorate’s “problem perception” — a major factor swaying political preferences. And this shake-up explains to a large extent the AKP’s electoral victory.
In September, the Ipsos Social Research Institute’s “Turkey Barometer” survey, conducted in 15 cities among 1,319 people, found that 72% of Turks saw “the settlement process/terrorism” as the country’s “biggest problem.” The reason why the problem was defined by two seemingly contradictory terms — the settlement process and terrorism — stemmed from the fact that the survey’s questions were open-ended. In the survey’s August edition, the figure had stood at 47%. A 25-point increase in just one month reflects a dramatic shift in the perception of a “terrorism problem,” which funneled a great deal of votes to the AKP.
Now, let’s see how things stood ahead of June 7 before the “problem perception” turned upside down. The May findings of the same survey explain why the AKP failed in the June 7 polls. In the absence of conflict with the PKK and terror attacks attributed to IS, only 14% of Turks saw “the settlement process/terrorism” as the country’s main problem, while a staggering 53% put Turkey’s economic downturn on top of the list. And here comes the crux of the matter: Four months later, in September, those who believed the economy was the biggest problem were down to 12%, although economic indicators showed no improvement in the meantime.
All these figures speak of one thing: The new war against the PKK, launched as a deliberate political choice by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime, coupled with the bombings blamed on IS, suppressed the perception of the economic downturn as the country’s biggest problem, which had been a key factor in the AKP’s failure in the June 7 polls.
The climate of terror kept stoking fear, insecurity and threat perceptions among the electorate, reaching a climax in the wake of the Oct. 10 twin bombings in Ankara that killed 102 people. At that point, the security forces raided an IS safe house in Diyarbakir, killing seven militants, in what seems to have had a reassuring effect on the electorate. The operation also aimed to undo the perception that the government was behind the IS bombings.
As a result, a segment of voters who had abandoned the AKP in last year’s municipal polls and the June 7 general elections, unhappy with economic woes, corruption or the settlement process, and who had gravitated either to the far-right Nationalist Action Party or the Kurdish-dominated Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), gave up their demands for political change under the strain of the mounting terror threat, opting for the continuation of the authoritarian status quo and handing back the AKP its strong parliamentary majority.
The regime’s media played a major role in ensuring this outcome. Equally influential was the huge government pressure on other media that severely curbed press freedoms. All in all, the government managed to convince the conservative Sunni electorate that it was the PKK that had reignited the conflict and ended the settlement process. Thus, those voters put no blame on the AKP for the climate of terror. The opposition, meanwhile, failed to convince them of its own credibility as an alternative, further facilitating their return to the AKP.
In short, the Erdogan regime won the elections by adding new problems to Turkey’s already hefty load of them and then convincing part of the electorate that only the AKP could resolve them. The credit should go to Erdogan as the architect of an exceptional tactical victory achieved with Machiavellian cunning.
The outcome may have given the regime another four years in power, but Erdogan and the AKP should now get down to business to sort out the conflict with the PKK and gratify the voters. And the only way to do this is the revival of the process to settle the Kurdish issue.
Will this process be linked to a new constitution and Erdogan’s aspirations to introduce a presidential system? We have to wait and see. The parliamentary arithmetic, however, is favorable. The AKP has 317 seats and the HDP 59. Provided the two parties reach a compromise, their total of 376 seats allows them to draw up a new constitution and enact it directly, without even going to a referendum.
Should the settlement of the Kurdish conflict become the subject of bargaining in return for a new constitution installing a presidential system, the real question will be how high the PKK’s military and political leadership puts the bar. This time it is likely to impose tougher negotiating terms on Ankara since the PKK today is in a much stronger position than in late 2012, when the previous settlement process kicked off. As a result of the policies Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have pursued vis-a-vis Syria and the Kurds, the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the Democratic Union Party, have become allies of both the United States and Russia. The two Kurdish organizations also are allies of Iran and the Damascus regime. Such bonds could now make it easier for outside actors to exert indirect adverse influence on Turkey’s Kurdish problem.
If the PKK raises preconditions that are extremely hard to accept, such as a demand for autonomy, Erdogan will find himself facing a tough dilemma. The discussion of autonomy is likely to stir nationalist outrage and thus hamper the making of a new constitution. The alternative, however, cannot be the continuation of the war with the PKK.
Erdogan was able to win the elections by augmenting Turkey’s problems. Now, these problems are bound to grow further unless he finds urgent solutions.
**Kadri Gursel is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse. He wrote a column for the Turkish daily Milliyet between 2007 and July 2015. He focuses primarily on Turkish foreign policy, international affairs and Turkey’s Kurdish question, as well as Turkey’s evolving political Islam.
Is Qatar Iran’s door to the Gulf?
Ali Mamouri/Al-Monitor/November 06/15
The map of alliances in the Middle East is changing rapidly, influenced by regional and international conflicts. Following the Iran nuclear deal signed in July and the improvement of Iran’s ties with the West in general, multiple parties in the region have started to reconsider their relationships.
The countries that have complained about the expansion of Iranian influence in the region and tried to hinder it have found this role strengthened. However, following the nuclear deal, some Gulf countries, particularly Qatar, have sought to decrease the tension and started to warm to Iran. Iran’s recent stances have allowed the country to adapt to the opposition facing Tehran’s influence in the region following the nuclear deal, Reformists called on Iran to open up to the Gulf countries. Speaking to Shafaqna on Oct. 18, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the chairman of the Expediency Council, said that the improvement of Iranian ties with Saudi Arabia is necessary and will be possible based on mutual interests and respect, the same reasoning followed in the nuclear talks with the West.
Furthermore, on Oct. 14, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that it is in neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia’s interest to harm one another, adding, “Iran and the Arab countries are in the same boat, which if it sinks, everyone on board will drown.” Qatar’s stances seemed to align with this new approach by Tehran. It seems that Qatar was prepared for and welcomed the Iranian rapprochement with the West, as it waited to see the outcome of the Iranian nuclear discussions, and adapted its own alliances based on developments in this regard.
Qatar was one of the first countries to welcome the Iran nuclear deal. Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Attiyah said Aug. 4 that the deal makes the region safer. The emir of Qatar had focused his discourse at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 28 on the need for cooperation and rapprochement with Iran. He said, “The relations between Doha and Tehran are evolving and growing steadily, based on common interests and good neighborliness.”
He added that Qatar “looks forward with hope that this nuclear deal contributes to maintaining security and stability in our region,” and concluded that his country “is ready to host a dialogue between Iran and the Gulf countries in its territory.”
Also, Qatar fears an expansion of the Saudi role in the region following the Saudi-Iranian conflict, which is playing out in the fighting in Yemen. The Saudi-Qatari conflict also escalated when Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar on March 5, negatively impacting Qatar’s regional influence. Qatar took another step toward Iran by developing its security and military agreements with it in a qualitative change. The Islamic Republic News Agency announced that Iran and Qatar signed a security agreement Oct. 18 to fight crime in the two countries’ boundary waters.
This new agreement was preceded by a series of meetings and understandings between the two countries. In December 2010, Iranian military commanders arrived in Qatar in Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps military vessels to hold meetings and reach security understandings. Iran’s Ambassador to Qatar Abdullah Sohrabi and military attache Masha-Allah Purseh attended the meeting that resulted in the signing of a security agreement between the two countries. The joint meetings and talks between the two sides continued in the military, security and economic fields.
Apart from these political developments, Qatar has shared important economic interests with Iran, particularly in the gas fields between the two countries. Qatar is aware that the lifting of sanctions on Iran would end its privileged position for Iran, as it is the only one of the two that can host foreign companies investing in gas. If sanctions are lifted then Iran could do this as well. In this context, investment projects will be launched in the joint Qatari-Iranian gas fields following the lifting of UN sanctions in the deal’s full implementation deal, which could take up to six months. These projects will require cooperation and understanding between the two countries.
Qatar does not want to be part of the Saudi camp in the sectarian conflict in the region. It already has border disputes with Saudi Arabia and does not want to be under its influence, considering itself a leader in the Arab World. This is another reason for Qatar to diversify its alliances in general and move closer to Iran after the healing of the rift between Iran and the West. The responses to the recent Qatari-Iranian security agreement were totally different in the Gulf countries and Iraq. Some parties with good relations with Iran, such as the Badr Organization, have welcomed the Qatari-Iranian rapprochement, while others consider it a form of treason. On Oct. 22, the pro-Iranian Badr parliamentary bloc in Iraq welcomed the security agreement and called on the Gulf countries to reconcile their views with Iran’s.
Nevertheless, Gulf news sites opposing the Qatari-Iranian rapprochement have exaggerated the security agreement between the two countries to exploit it in the Saudi-Iranian conflict. Saudi Arabia’s Sada newspaper reported Oct. 20 that Qatar and Iran have signed an agreement involving the entry of the Iranian navy into Qatari waters as well as Iranian help to train Qatari naval forces on Iran’s Qeshm Island. It described the agreement as a threat to the security of Qatar’s Gulf neighbors. Based on unverified reports, other Gulf websites claimed that Qatar is on its way to turning from being a “US favorite” into an “Iranian protectorate.”
Away from the exaggerations, experience shows that alliances in the Middle East change with the political equations between the conflicting powers in the region, and these changes sometimes result in harsh surprises to embattled countries such as Iraq and Syria, which are in no position to make such initiatives.
***Ali Mamouri is a columnist for Al-Monitor’s Iraq Pulse, a researcher and writer who specializes in religion. He is a former teacher in Iranian universities and seminaries in Iran and Iraq. He has published several articles related to religious affairs in the two countries and societal transformations and sectarianism in the Middle East.
