Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 28 2009

Local polls set to give ErdoÄ?an reform boost

Turkey’s ruling party is set to win a clear victory in Sunday’s local
polls despite a worsening economy, freeing popular Prime Minister
Tayyip ErdoÄ?an’s hand to pursue his reformist drive in the
European Union candidate country.

ErdoÄ?an, a former Ä°stanbul mayor, is hoping to wrest the
mainly Kurdish Southeast from pro-Kurdish parties in what might prove
a historic step toward solving a conflict weighing heavily on the
country’s economic and political development. A strong mandate across
the country for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party),
Turkey’s most stable government in decades, would give ErdoÄ?an
a fresh boost to push ahead with measures aimed at bringing the Muslim
country closer to the EU and protect a once-fast-growing economy now
under severe strain due to the global economic crisis.

But any sharp drop in support in municipal elections could increase
political hazards in a country with a long history of instability and
invigorate an entrenched secularist opposition that accuses
ErdoÄ?an of pursuing a stealthy religious agenda.

In the background, though not yet an election issue, an elaborate coup
plot case is unsettling markets and raising tension between the
government and secularists. More than 140 people, including retired
senior officers, face charges that they planned to engineer an army
coup to unseat ErdoÄ?an.

ErdoÄ?an denies he prompted the investigation for his own
political ends.

Polls this week showed the AK Party winning 40-50 percent of the vote
despite record unemployment, a slowing economy and graft allegations;
a result largely due to ErdoÄ?an’s popularity and the weakness
of opposition parties crushed by the newly formed AK Party in 2002 and
still unable to regain their hold.

Opinion surveys, however, are famously inaccurate in Turkey.

Growing joblessness and an expected economic contraction in 2009 after
years of unprecedented growth could erode some gains Turkey has made
since the AK Party first took office in 2002.

"We believe that a 40-45 percent AK Party victory would be slightly
positive because it would leave the domestic political landscape more
or less unchanged while allowing the AK Party to refocus on pressing
economic issues," a Goldman Sachs analyst wrote in a research note
this week.

The AK Party won 47 percent of the vote in 2007 general elections.

The IMF and Turkey have been in talks for months on a deal markets say
is key to shielding the $750 billion economy from the global
crisis. Investors, hit by risk-aversion, expect the deal’s fate to be
clear after Sunday’s elections.

New constitution

ErdoÄ?an has pledged to reform the 1982 army-drafted
Constitution, a step that would remove some obstacles in the way of EU
membership for this country of 72 million people. The secularist camp,
lukewarm to Europe, resists such plans.

Under his party the NATO member has been busy mediating in conflicts
from the Middle East and the Caucasus to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

ErdoÄ?an, by far Turkey’s most popular politician, has
campaigned tirelessly for his AK Party, holding mass rallies across
the country ahead of the elections, in which Turks will vote for
mayors and municipal and provincial assemblies.

Critics accuse ErdoÄ?an of having lost his reformist spirit
since Turkey won historic EU accession talks in 2005 and say he is
growing autocratic. If ErdoÄ?an wins by more than 50 percent,
analysts say, he might abandon the conciliatory tone he pledged after
his party was nearly closed down by a court in 2008 for Islamist
activities in a case that polarized Turkey.

Respected pollster Konda estimates that the AK Party will win 48
percent of the vote nationwide in provincial assemblies.

ErdoÄ?an has weathered the hostility of a conservative
establishment in courting Kurdish support in the impoverished
Southeast, where some 40,000 have died in separatist conflict since
1984. The AK Party hopes to draw on this support in supplanting
Kurdish parties in regional administrations.

Some analysts say the decades-old Kurdish conflict might be nearing an
end. In a break with the past, Ankara has granted more rights to Kurds
and has opened diplomatic channels with the autonomous Kurdish
government of Iraq on fighting Kurdish separatists, who have been
weakened by military strikes.

ErdoÄ?an’s government has also won international praise by
mediating in Middle East conflicts and reaching out to historic foe
Armenia. Turkey will host US President Barack Obama in April, a visit
seen as a nod to Turkey’s growing regional clout.

28 March 2009, Saturday
IBON VILLELABEITIA, REUTERS ANKARA