Kurds and the AKP: The End of an Affair?

Rising Kurdish support for the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi-AKP) has been one of the key elements of the party's political success. In the elections of 22 July 2007, the AKP won more votes in the provinces of southeastern Turkey than the Kurdish-leaning Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi-DTP). This followed a trend already witnessed in 2002, where Kurds who migrated to the big cities of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Adana voted heavily for the AKP. This shift was a reward for the party's democratisation efforts; support for EU membership and successful economic policy and of course a statement against the military and the judiciary which had precipitated the early elections. Turkey's Kurds appeared to be the most pro-EU membership population group and for understandable reasons. Turkey's EU membership would not only guarantee full respect for Kurdish minority rights; it would also enable high rates of economic growth, of which Turkey's Kurds one of the most marginalised groups of the country's population would benefit. This vote could also be deciphered as a warning for the political representative of Turkey's Kurds, the DTP. The party had failed to overcome its internal divisions, express a clear opposition to the use of violence for the advancement of Kurdish rights and join efforts to promote Turkey's democratisation and EU membership cause. This was noted by the voters who shifted away.

More than a year after the elections, the picture has not turned brighter. Turkey's economic situation has deteriorated. Having already paid a high toll to political instability, caused by the summer 2007 political crisis and early elections, as well as the 2008 closure case against the AKP, Turkey was caught in September into the maelstrom of the global financial crisis. The exchange rate of the New Turkish Lira has slumped about 20 percent against the US dollar and the Euro, and this has significantly aggravated the service of the country's foreign debt. The upcoming global economic recession spells no good omens for the most dynamic sector of Turkey's economy, manufacturing. Achieving strong growth due to increasing exports, Turkish manufacturers will probably have to suffer a slump in their sales, due to the global decrease of consumer demand. A significant slowdown of Turkey's GDP growth will hit the bulk of the populations and undermine one of the two pillars of AKP's political success, economic wellbeing for the majority of the population. This could cool off voters irrespective of their Turkish or Kurdish ethnic identity.

On the political front, there is barely any progress regarding democratisation reform. The government has suspended plans for a new constitution which would –among other issues– improve the protection of minority rights. On the contrary, many columnists argue that the government is slowly approaching mainstream bureaucratic positions on the Kurdish issue. Erdogan's recent visit to the Kurdish-inhabited provinces of southeastern Turkey was meant to improve the government's image but failed to change the mood. In fact a statement he reportedly made on 3 November in the southeastern city of Hakkari was close to "Either love it or leave it" (Ya sev ya terk et). This has been a common slogan of Turkish nationalists, at first referring to Istanbul minorities. Armenians, Greeks and Jews had to "love Turkey", meaning they had to voluntarily assimilate; otherwise they had to "leave", i.e. emigrate. While Erdogan vehemently denied the verbatim use of the slogan, he stressed in a parliamentary meeting a few days later: "We said, 'One nation, one flag, one motherland and one state.' Those who don't like this may go anywhere they like." Tension has also been growing on other fronts. The Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) has escalated its attacks against Turkish military positions. On 3 October, a remote Turkish military outpost at Aktutunlu next to the Iraqi border was attacked. 17 Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack which shocked Turkish public opinion. This attack sparked outrage and heated nationalist feeling in Turkish media. Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court is expected to issue its decision on the closure of the Kurdish-leaning DTP. If the DTP is closed, as many fear, then this could lead to the further radicalisation of the Kurdish population and the weakening of moderate Kurdish political figures who try to mediate a solution for the Kurdish question.

As Turkey was increasingly influenced by US election campaign and Barack Obama's successful political message, Fehmi Koru, a prominent columnist of the AKP-leaning, conservative daily Yeni Safak attempted a daring comparison. He argued that when Erdogan came to power in 2002, he shared many political features with today's Obama. However, after six years in power, Erdogan has lost his reformist drive and started defending the status quo. In other words, he was increasingly looking like Bush. Erdogan reacted angrily to Kuru's comment and understandably so: Who would like to be compared to Bush under current conditions? Nonetheless, many commentators agreed that the gist of Kuru's argument, AKP's reform fatigue and increasing accommodation with the bureaucracy was valid. Four years before, Erdogan had visited southeastern Turkey again. In that visit he had become the first Turkish Prime Minister who openly admitted the existence of a "Kurdish question" and argued that its solution could be achieved in the framework of Turkey's democratisation. This daring approach seems to have dissipated along the way and replaced by mainstream nationalist arguments.

The election of Barack Obama to the US Presidency may well mean a shift of US policy in Iraq in the near future. This will inevitably involve Iraqi Kurds and Turkey. Finding common ground with Iraqi Kurds in the framework of a post-conflict Iraq solution will be a golden opportunity for Turkey to undercut the lifeline of the PKK. To achieve this though, the AKP government needs to deliver on its promised and forgotten political reform agenda and thus contribute to the isolation of the PKK from the bulk of Turkey's Kurdish population. The upcoming municipal elections of March 2009 might serve as a warning signal for a government whose reformist drive seems to have considerably weakened over the last year despite clear popular mandate for the opposite.

(Published on Athens News on 21 November 2008)