Ankara Letter: Parties focus on Erdogan ahead of key election

Everywhere the political class meets in Ankara these days, at diplomatic receptions, noisy dinner parties and quiet lunches, the talk is all of arithmetic, and of three numbers in particular – 550, 330 and 10.

These are the crucial numbers in Turkey's parliamentary election next Sunday, the outcome of which could have far-reaching consequences for the country, its freedoms and its increasingly autocratic president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Under Turkey's constitution, the president is a non-partisan figurehead but Erdogan is hoping to introduce a presidential system with an executive president similar to those in France and the United States. To change the constitution, his Justice and Development Party (AKP) must win three-fifths of the 550 seats in parliament – 330.

The president, who is constitutionally prohibited from campaigning for the AKP, has been making up to three public appearances a day in what are pro-AKP rallies in all but name. He has also stepped up his attacks on his critics in the media, both in Turkey and abroad.

Last Sunday, he warned the editor of Turkey's oldest daily, Cumhuriyet, that he "will pay a heavy price" for publishing video footage that contradicts Erdogan's denial last year that Turkish intelligence operatives smuggled weapons into Syria for use by anti-government rebels.

Erdogan's threats are not idle – even if Turkey has slipped from the top of the rankings of the world's leading jailers of journalists following the release of dozens of imprisoned journalists last year. Journalists are routinely arrested for defaming or insulting the president and Hurriyet Daily News is facing criminal proceedings for its headline reporting last month's death sentence against Egypt's former president Mohamed Morsi: "The world is shocked! Death sentence for president who received 52 per cent of the vote."

Erdogan, who won Turkey’s presidency last year with 52 per cent of the vote, claimed the headline suggested that he could face the same penalty.

Yusuf Kanli, a columnist with Hurriyet Daily News and one of Turkey's keenest political analysts, told me that the chilling effect of Erdogan's intolerance of media criticism is more insidious even than the high-profile cases suggest. As project co-ordinator for Press for Freedom (pressforfreedom.org) an NGO that promotes media freedom and trains and supports journalists, he documents dozens of cases each month where journalists are prevented from doing their jobs.

A recent innovation is an “accreditation system” where journalists from some news organisations are not admitted to press conferences and journalists perceived as critical of the AKP are frequently threatened or even physically assaulted. Prosecutors use anti-terrorism legislation to target the government’s critics in the media, fuelling a culture of self-censorship among journalists and their editors that further stifles discordant voices.

The AKP has been the dominant party in Turkish politics since the meltdown of the traditional centre-right parties in 2001-2002, commanding twice the support of its closest rival, the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP). The AKP, which enjoys the support of Islamists and mainstream centre-right voters, won half the votes in 2011, securing 326 seats in parliament.

The party has been a beneficiary of Turkey’s electoral system, which denies parliamentary representation to parties that win less than 10 per cent of the national vote. Kurds make up about 13 per cent of Turkey’s population but Kurdish parties have traditionally won only about half that proportion of the votes. So Kurdish politicians have until now stood as independents, winning seats mostly in the southeast of the country.

Encouraged by the performance last year of its presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtas, who won 9.7 per cent of the vote, the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has decided to contest Sunday's parliamentary elections, hoping to cross the crucial 10 per cent threshold. The party has sought to broaden its appeal beyond the Kurdish ethnic vote, embracing non-Kurdish progressives, running a fully gender-balanced ticket and even boasting an openly gay candidate.

If the HDP enters parliament, it could change the parliamentary arithmetic so much that the AKP wins up to 70 fewer seats, effectively snuffing out Erdogan’s hopes of constitutional change.

Few doubt that a more powerful presidency will reinforce Erdogan’s incipient authoritarianism and many liberal Turks are preparing to swallow their misgivings over the HDP’s failure to condemn Kurdish terrorism and cast their vote for the party as the most effective way of thwarting the president. It may also be the last, best hope for rescuing press freedom in Turkey.