CHP surges in first post-protest opinion poll

One way of assessing the political implications of the unrest in Turkey, which has entered its fifteenth day, is to look at what opinion polling has to say. Politicians, reporters and foreign observers alike are all keen to know how the events have affected how the country intends to vote.

We may now have the results of the first serious attempt at polling in the last two weeks. They show a significant narrowing of the gap between the governing AK party and the opposition CHP.

The headline figure (with changes from Gezici's last poll in May) is AKP 38.5% (-3.2), CHP 31.8 (+3.6), MHP 18.5 (-1), BDP 8.2 (-0.9).

The result is the strongest CHP showing that I've seen since just after current leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's election in May 2010. Consider this graph:

Erdoğan's hidden safety net

There's plenty of speculation out there on the implications of the last eleven days for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's political future. The Economist called this week for him to step down next year and make way for President Abdullah Gül. Ben Judah argued in the Financial Times that the prime minister needed to see this as his "1968 de Gaulle moment". Others have said any Erdoğan departure would lead to the immediate implosion of his Justice and Development (AK) party and the splintering of his centre-right/conservative/moderately Islamic coalition.

Perhaps. I will freely admit I am not in a position to guess what will happen next. No-one is, really. Right now, events on the ground feel a little like a swinging pendulum: first there was the calm when the police withdrew from Taksim, then there were the clashes in Beşiktaş. We then had the widely-publicised apology from deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç, but the pendulum swung back after we saw a greater police crackdown in Ankara. 

From street battle to street party

I have to admit I felt just a little awkward. Four-wheeled cabin baggage would not have been my apparel of choice while walking into a riot zone, but I had no choice.

I am in Istanbul this weekend to attend the wedding of an old friend. My hotel, booked weeks ago, is a small place in the backstreets of Şişli, just a few streets away from a certain Gezi Park. It's normally a two minute walk from Taksim's metro station; today, I had to find my way on foot from Mecidiyeköy, several kilometres away, as passers-by warned me there was tear gas about.

What follows is an account of what I saw.

Erdoğan's Thatcher moment?

It is hard not to be appalled by the scenes coming out of Taksim's Gezi Park, where police have swept in yet again to try and evict demonstrators protesting the park's demolition to make way for a shopping centre.

Police have used pepper spray and water cannon and batons to break the groups up. People wearing gasmasks – strongly suspected to be plainclothes officers – have been pictured setting fire to the demonstrators' tents. Dozens have been arrested, many others injured. The tear gas is so pungent and pervasive that Istanbul metro services into Taksim have had to be cancelled. And yet a further wave of protests is planned, meeting in Taksim at 7pm this evening.

Defining 'Turk': a constitutional barrier overcome?

Reverse psychology can be a wonderful thing. Just at Turkey's prime minister again cast doubt on his country ever having a new, cross-party constitution, the commission charged with writing that document appears to have accelerated its work.

Ahmet Türk

It was on Sunday that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters following him on his trip in the United States that he was "losing hope" over the constitution-writing process. He continued:

"If there is no solution, we will follow our Plan C and use our own [draft constitution] template. We have 326 MPs and, as you know, it will be a secret ballot, so perhaps a few brave souls will emerge despite their own party's pressure. If we can get the numbers, we will take it to a referendum."

The said parliamentary commission is made up of twelve MPs, three each from the governing AK Party and opposition Republican People's (CHP), Nationalist Movement (MHP) and Peace and Democracy (BDP) parties, and chaired by the speaker, AK Party MP Cemil Çiçek.

The prime minister’s Plan C refers to oft-repeated AK Party threats to team up with the pro-Kurdish BDP and other opposition rebels to reach the magic 367 number, a two-thirds seat majority, which would allow the government to change the constitution unilaterally.

Fazıl Say, Emre Bukağılı and an unending conflict in Turkish society

 

Another artist was persecuted for offending Turkey's nouveau establishment this week when the pianist Fazıl Say was handed an eight month prison sentence for comments he made on Twitter. His tweets from last April, long since removed from his @FazilSayOfficial account, were deemed to be blasphemous and offensive to the country's Muslim population. 

Among the offending tweets was one posted on 5 April 2012 that read: "This muezzin finished the evening call to prayer in 22 seconds. Prestissimmo con fuoco! What's the hurry? A woman? A rakı drinking table?" In other tweets he quoted preachings on the afterlife attributed to an 11th century Islamic theologian and commented: "is heaven a brothel?" Tashlik has a good summary (scroll down for English) of the tweets.

Fazıl Say is a vocal critic of the government, which helped to attract extensive coverage of the outcome to his trial in Turkey and abroad. There are three observations that can be drawn from his conviction.

More than a quarter of Turkish voters are undecided

The latest regular Konsensus survey for Haberturk might not appear to throw up any voting intention surprises on first glance. AK Party holds its a clear lead (36.8%) with the CHP losing support (17.5%) and the MHP keeping firm (11.1%). The BDP trails on 3.6%, other parties were 3.5%.

On a uniform swing projection, that would give the AK Party 317 seats (down ten from the 2011 election), the CHP 137 (up two) and the MHP 61 (up eight). That would be a healthy AK majority.

The figures I quote above are based on voters who said they definitely would vote. A huge number did not support any party: 12.3% of those polled told Konsensus that they had not made their mind. A further 5.6% said they would not vote or would spoil their ballot, while 9.6% refused to answer the question.

That's 27.5%, more than a quarter of the sample, representing a huge portion of the Turkish electorate that is waiting to be convinced.

Turkey and Israel: the ambiguous peace

What a difference even an unpopular US president can make.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his first phone call in four years to his Turkish counterpart this afternoon. During the 30 minute conversation, he apologised for Israel's role in Mavi Marmara incident and agreed to discuss compensation for the families of the nine Turkish victims.

Both sides are to send their ambassadors back at once, reports suggest, a move which would restore full diplomatic relations. Mr Netanyahu also made a number of overtures on the entry of civilian goods into Palestinian territories, an issue about which Mr Erdoğan has been vocal. Barack Obama’s role in making the phone call happen appears to be pivotal.

As always with these things, the precise language is important. Israeli national security advisor Yaakov Amidror and Feridun Sinirlioğlu, who as undersecretary is essentially the man to know at Turkey's foreign ministry, had met in Rome recently to thrash out a form of words both sides could agree upon - but they failed. The task clearly fell above their pay grades.

So it is curious that the precise terms of this apology are somewhat ambiguous.

The first step of the peace process: a PKK ceasefire

What happened this morning is quite extraordinary.

The imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, released a message calling for peace in southeast Turkey.

Tens of thousands of people turned out in Diyarbakır to hear it.

The message, to mark the Kurdish new year of Nowruz, was read out in Kurdish and Turkish.

The PKK leader called for his organisation's armed militants to retreat across the border back into northern Iraq. He did not ask them to disarm. 

Erdoğan on anti-Semitism: is this really an apology?

As Barack Obama tours Israel and the Palestinian territories, Turkish media has seized on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s remarks during his concurrent visit to Denmark.

“Erdoğan clarifies his comments on Zionism”, Milliyet reported yesterday, quoting comments the prime minister made to the Danish daily Politiken. What he actually did was clarify his views on Israel and Palestine – views that we already knew.

Politiken put it to Mr Erdoğan that his remarks last month were understood by some to question the very legitimacy of Israel’s existence and asked whether this was correct.

The prime minister responded, amply, with Turkey’s official line: he is critical of Israeli policy and the current government, not the state of Israel. He supports a two-state solution. He frequently condemns anti-Semitism.

The crucial sentence is his final one: “In this context, I stand behind my remarks in Vienna.”