Psychological electioneering

A prominent polling company director said the support for the ruling party was at 35 to 38 percent margin for a long period since the end of the closure case last summer. The corruption claims against some prominent AKP figures and the extraordinary performance of main-opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, deputy (today’s mayoral candidate for Istanbul) Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in unveiling alleged corruption by leading AKP members further dipped the popularity of the AKP. However, with the Davos performance of the premier, support for AKP apparently exceeded 50 percent. Naturally, in a country where the communal memory is not much different than fish memory and hardly any issue can manage to attract public attention for more than two weeks, if somehow the AKP cannot rehash the "Davos walkout spirit" with some equally explosive attractions, the emotional upsurge in the support for the ruling party will die out by the time the election box is placed in front of the electorate some eight weeks later.

Istanbul syndrome

There are anyhow signs that the post-Davos surge in its popularity might not suffice and at least at some of its strongholds the AKP may suffer humiliating defeat. For example, though most public opinion polls place AKP’s incumbent Kadir Topbaş ahead of CHP’s Kılıçdaroğlu by at least 8 percentage points, at least one poll reportedly showed that Ñ as a result of CHP candidate’s clean politics platform starting to appeal voters on the one hand and the Islamist Felicity Party, or SP, mayoral candidate Mehmet Bekaroğlu dividing the Islamist-conservative vote on the other hand Ñ the CHP candidate may narrow the difference and indeed could finish the race first. Indeed, according to CHP sources, a public opinion poll conducted by the AKP in Istanbul predicted Kiliçdaroğlu will grasp the mayoral seat with 1.5 points difference. That is why, according to CHP analysts, the prime minister has concentrated so much on the Istanbul election as if he himself is contesting for the mayoral seat in the largest Turkish city.

Naturally, Istanbul has a symbolic significance. Social democrats lost the Istanbul mayoral seat to Islamist-conservatives back in 1994 with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan becoming the mayor. Since then, the largest city of the country has been run by Islamist-conservative mayors. If AKP loses the Istanbul election that could mark the start of the end of the AKP rule of the country as well. At least a social democratic victory in Istanbul will have a very strong psychological impact on national politics.

Diyarbakır and Çankaya

For the AKP, on the other hand, winning the Çankaya municipality in Ankara and the mayoral seat in Diyarbakır appears to be as important as winning the Istanbul mayoral seat. Çankaya, besides being the seat of presidency and government, has been the perennial stronghold of secularist social democrats. AKP worked hard to change the demography of the Çankaya by annulling some small municipalities and annexing them to the Çankaya region, however, that move was cancelled by the Council of State. The AKP now has Bülent Akarcalı, a center-right politician who served as health minister in the Turgut Özal government, as its candidate for Çankaya mayor while CHP has picked a city planning engineer Bülent Tanık. Naturally, both the AKP and CHP claim the other has no chance in the upcoming March 29 mayoral polls. While an AKP win at Çankaya will be a psychological booster for the "legitimacy seeking" ruling party, a Çankaya loss could trigger a landslide in the CHP. Perhaps the social democrats wishing to see change in the CHP utilize this probability by not voting for CHP. The Diyarbakır vote, on the other hand, has become psychologically detrimental for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, or DTP. The DTP is trying to convert the vote in Diyarbakır, as well as 11 other southeastern cities where it participates elections, into a referendum on Kurdish identity of those settlements. If it loses to AKP in Diyarbakır and in some other cities of the region, it will have to reconsider whether to continue its ethnic nationalist policies or try to become a party engaged in national politics. A DTP win, on the other hand, could trigger increased unrest and a troubled future for the Southeast.