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Since this article deserves a seperate thread and non-defense related articles are not allowed in Turkish section, i will post it here.
©AFP
To divine their country’s shifting politics, Turks have learnt over the past decade to watch President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — his daily utterances, his mood, his health and even the clothes he chooses to wear.
But from his sprawling presidential compound in Ankara, the most powerful man in Turkey has for the past year kept his eyes on Meral Aksener, until recently a low-profile MP from the country’s shrivelled nationalist opposition party.
Ms Aksener, 59, is on the verge of wresting the leadership of the Nationalist Movement party, or MHP, from a comparatively charmless, elderly leader who has spent the past decade ceding the support of nationalist and patriotic voters to Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP).
“I wouldn’t say that the president is worried about Aksener,” said an adviser to Mr Erdogan. “But he is definitely watching this leadership struggle in the MHP with a lot of interest, just like the rest of the country.”
If she prevails this Sunday in a bitterly contested party election, pollsters expect her to rejuvenate the party — so much so that it may become impossible for Mr Erdogan to call early elections to tighten further the AKP’s hold on the Turkish parliament.
The most recent surveys by Metropoll, an independent pollster, show that Ms Aksener would steal support both from the AKP and the Republican People’s party, Turkey’s biggest opposition, boosting the MHP to about a fifth of the national vote. That is nearly double its current level and higher than any showing in its recent history.
Her personal popularity outstrips any of her rivals, save Mr Erdogan’s. in the nearly 40 cities she has spoken since January, tens of thousands thronged the speeches, forcing her sometimes to speak quickly to keep the crowds under control.
“She is perhaps the only person in the country with enough political charisma to challenge Mr Erdogan,” said Ozer Sencar, at Metropoll Strategic and Social Research Center. “It has the potential to completely change the political order in Turkey.”
Virtually unknown to the outside world, Ms Aksener made her reputation as the interior minister during a centre-right administration in the 1990s, when she fiercely — if unsuccessfully — resisted the military’s attempts to topple the government. Now, almost two decades later, her supporters see her as a counterbalance to Mr Erdogan’s overwhelming political control, made possible in part by the weakness in the MHP’s leadership.
Selim Koru, a political analyst at Economic Policy Research Foundation, noted how Ms Aksener had thrived in a male-dominated field, calling her a “fearless polemicist and ruthless strategiser.”
In a recent speech, she appealed for support across a polarised Turkish society. “Our government will be like the family feasts we have on holidays across this country,” she said. “Our grandfathers, aunts and uncles will join with our daughters, who may wear headscarves or who may dye their hair purple. We will welcome our ülkücü [idealist] sons and also our sons who may have tattoos and earrings. All will benefit from the blessing of the meal.”
But on the crucial question of relations with Turkey’s minority Kurdish population, she stands to the right of Mr Erdogan. She is frequently photographed, for example, holding her fingers in the symbol of the wolf, a potent reminder of the 1970s, when Kurds and leftists around the country were killed in extrajudicial executions.
Ms Aksener declined several requests for an interview, saying only that she was too busy to speak with journalists. Three of her closest aides, who spoke to the FT on the condition of anonymity, described her long-term goals as: disrupt the AKP’s ability to control parliament and make the MHP indispensable to Mr Erdogan’s future calculations, especially his plans to pass a constitutional referendum that will legitimise the de facto executive presidency he now oversees.
“If he wants to do it, he has to do it with our help,” said one aide. “Otherwise, he can’t do it.”
That bravado might be a bit premature. Mr Erdogan remains unfailingly popular and unquestionably powerful, hobbled only by the fact a second round of elections in 2015 did not deliver him a super majority in parliament.
But at a time when the country faces almost daily bombings from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or the PKK, a terrorist group dedicated to the cause of Kurdish separatism, Ms Aksener’s toughness holds an appeal for those who fault Mr Erdogan for seeking to hold peace talks with the PKK. Mr Erdogan has since disavowed those failed talks.
In a sign of how Ms Aksener’s rise has unsettled Mr Erdogan’s supporters, Turkey’s pro-government newspapers have consistently attacked her patriotism, tying her to the exiled imam Fethullah Gulen, a one-time Erdogan ally who is now a sworn enemy.
For her supporters, the attacks are seen as a badge of pride, evidence that Ms Aksener is something Turkey has not seen for a long time — a political opponent Mr Erdogan actually worries about.
https://next.ft.com/content/285ea9e8-4447-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d
To divine their country’s shifting politics, Turks have learnt over the past decade to watch President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — his daily utterances, his mood, his health and even the clothes he chooses to wear.
But from his sprawling presidential compound in Ankara, the most powerful man in Turkey has for the past year kept his eyes on Meral Aksener, until recently a low-profile MP from the country’s shrivelled nationalist opposition party.
Ms Aksener, 59, is on the verge of wresting the leadership of the Nationalist Movement party, or MHP, from a comparatively charmless, elderly leader who has spent the past decade ceding the support of nationalist and patriotic voters to Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP).
“I wouldn’t say that the president is worried about Aksener,” said an adviser to Mr Erdogan. “But he is definitely watching this leadership struggle in the MHP with a lot of interest, just like the rest of the country.”
If she prevails this Sunday in a bitterly contested party election, pollsters expect her to rejuvenate the party — so much so that it may become impossible for Mr Erdogan to call early elections to tighten further the AKP’s hold on the Turkish parliament.
The most recent surveys by Metropoll, an independent pollster, show that Ms Aksener would steal support both from the AKP and the Republican People’s party, Turkey’s biggest opposition, boosting the MHP to about a fifth of the national vote. That is nearly double its current level and higher than any showing in its recent history.
Her personal popularity outstrips any of her rivals, save Mr Erdogan’s. in the nearly 40 cities she has spoken since January, tens of thousands thronged the speeches, forcing her sometimes to speak quickly to keep the crowds under control.
“She is perhaps the only person in the country with enough political charisma to challenge Mr Erdogan,” said Ozer Sencar, at Metropoll Strategic and Social Research Center. “It has the potential to completely change the political order in Turkey.”
Virtually unknown to the outside world, Ms Aksener made her reputation as the interior minister during a centre-right administration in the 1990s, when she fiercely — if unsuccessfully — resisted the military’s attempts to topple the government. Now, almost two decades later, her supporters see her as a counterbalance to Mr Erdogan’s overwhelming political control, made possible in part by the weakness in the MHP’s leadership.
Selim Koru, a political analyst at Economic Policy Research Foundation, noted how Ms Aksener had thrived in a male-dominated field, calling her a “fearless polemicist and ruthless strategiser.”
In a recent speech, she appealed for support across a polarised Turkish society. “Our government will be like the family feasts we have on holidays across this country,” she said. “Our grandfathers, aunts and uncles will join with our daughters, who may wear headscarves or who may dye their hair purple. We will welcome our ülkücü [idealist] sons and also our sons who may have tattoos and earrings. All will benefit from the blessing of the meal.”
But on the crucial question of relations with Turkey’s minority Kurdish population, she stands to the right of Mr Erdogan. She is frequently photographed, for example, holding her fingers in the symbol of the wolf, a potent reminder of the 1970s, when Kurds and leftists around the country were killed in extrajudicial executions.
Ms Aksener declined several requests for an interview, saying only that she was too busy to speak with journalists. Three of her closest aides, who spoke to the FT on the condition of anonymity, described her long-term goals as: disrupt the AKP’s ability to control parliament and make the MHP indispensable to Mr Erdogan’s future calculations, especially his plans to pass a constitutional referendum that will legitimise the de facto executive presidency he now oversees.
“If he wants to do it, he has to do it with our help,” said one aide. “Otherwise, he can’t do it.”
That bravado might be a bit premature. Mr Erdogan remains unfailingly popular and unquestionably powerful, hobbled only by the fact a second round of elections in 2015 did not deliver him a super majority in parliament.
But at a time when the country faces almost daily bombings from the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or the PKK, a terrorist group dedicated to the cause of Kurdish separatism, Ms Aksener’s toughness holds an appeal for those who fault Mr Erdogan for seeking to hold peace talks with the PKK. Mr Erdogan has since disavowed those failed talks.
In a sign of how Ms Aksener’s rise has unsettled Mr Erdogan’s supporters, Turkey’s pro-government newspapers have consistently attacked her patriotism, tying her to the exiled imam Fethullah Gulen, a one-time Erdogan ally who is now a sworn enemy.
For her supporters, the attacks are seen as a badge of pride, evidence that Ms Aksener is something Turkey has not seen for a long time — a political opponent Mr Erdogan actually worries about.
https://next.ft.com/content/285ea9e8-4447-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d
