Turkey’s rising political star set for major fight

The walls of the local municipality's conference room are lined with pictures of Mustafa Sarigül meeting the famous: Pope Benedict, Kofi Annan, Shimon Peres. There's even one of him with Abdullah Gul – Turkey's president and a chief political foe.

But today, it's Istanbul mayor and AK Party member, Kadir Topbas, who's in Sarigül's sights.

Born in a rural hamlet in eastern Turkey in 1956, Mustafa Sarigül has made Sisli in Istanbul his den: he's been mayor of the financial hub since 1999. With the mayorship of Istanbul up for grabs next month, a powerful political position the ruling AK Party is loath to lose its grip on, it also means that Sarigül is now the focus of much attention, both good and bad.

Political tensions in Turkey have been growing in recent months, escalated by a graft probe against family members of government figures in December that prompted a ruthless backlash against the investigating police and judiciary.

On a recent Monday night, two gunmen emptied 15 bullets into Sarigül’s local municipality building, but no one was injured. “This is an attack against democracy ahead of the elections,” Sarigül told Turkish media.

At an extraordinary congress of the opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP) in 2005, Sarigül was ousted “due to some unjust claims made against me”, he says. Fists apparently flew. Differences have recently been overcome and last November Sarigül was invited to return. Sensing an opportunity, in December he was voted by CHP members to take on the AK Party for the mayoral seat of Istanbul.

“Mr Topbas has been mayor for 10 years – he is tired, that party is tired, they have lost the energy for Istanbul, for the future of Istanbul … Istanbul needs a new dynamism, a new energy,” he said.

Interference
Istanbul, he says, has not been governed from Istanbul for a long time. "The central government interferes in Istanbul's affairs. There are many projects that are put by the government, not by Istanbul municipalities."

Though Istanbul is replete with districts inhabited by liberals and secularists, there are vast swathes that identify with the AK Party's conservative Islamist principles. In the district of Fatih, pictures of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and deposed Egyptian president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi line street corners. But Sarigül is unperturbed. "Most of our time is consumed in such areas because we know that if we go there and talk to people, we can get their support."

The residents of Istanbul are perhaps most annoyed by the spate of construction projects engulfing a city that boasts a 2,600-year history. Since last May, urban regeneration and its various forms have become a lightning rod for public dissent. Last summer, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to support a sit-in of environmentalists at Istanbul's Gezi Park that was violently put down by police. Sarigül's aides say he was in Gezi from the start. Not only that, the police pepper-sprayed him.

'Crazy projects'
However, the need to upgrade the city's creaking transportation system is a pressing one. "We are not in favour of crazy projects, we are in favour of logical projects – things that follow the environment and the law. We will not sign off on any projects that are against the law, the environment and science," Sarigül said, adding that public participation would be part of any planned project.

But Sarigül says he can’t stop one of Istanbul’s most controversial projects: the third bridge to span the Bosphorus Strait north of the city, which is expected to be completed late next year.

Perhaps more troubling for city residents and environmentalists is the proposed construction of, in Erdogan’s words, the biggest airport in the world – a €22 billion project also north of the city. The site is today lush forest under which aquifers supply water to Istanbul’s 14 million people. Building an airport there, critics say, would jeopardise the city’s water supply.

Again, Sarigül cites central government interference.

“This was not in the metropolitan plan; the proposed site for a new airport was in east Istanbul but the central government changed this,” he said.

Last November, AK Party representative and current mayor Kadir Topbas held an eight-point lead over Sarigül in polls. Today, they are locked in a dead heat at 42 per cent each. The fact that Sarigül is tied with an AK Party figure in polls is something of a shock to most Turks given the government’s domination of almost all facets of Turkish politics for the past decade.

He has reinvigorated the CHP base, a party that has been accused of supporting anything Erdogan is against, rather than presenting qualitative governance policies for Turkey. A video clip taken at the funeral of a film star early last year shows Sarigül playfully planting a kiss on the cheek of rival Topbas. That helps, too.

Onslaught
However, Sarigül faces an AK Party onslaught. Last month, prime minister Erdogan claimed to reveal three corruption charges against Sarigül during a public address in Istanbul. Others have pointed to the fact that his home district experiences some of the worst traffic anywhere in the city and question his ability to run a metropolis of Istanbul's size.

A battle is predicted. "It is going to be a hard fight between them. I think it is going to be important for the future," said Bayram Balci of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Balci believes that Gulen Mmovement supporters, who don't traditionally vote CHP but have levers on important social and media groups, could swing the result for Sarigül.

“They [Gulen members] want to send a strong message and signal to the government.”