Most opinion polls suggest that his mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party (AK Party) will clobber its opponents yet again. The secular opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) is so desperate that it no longer talks much of the risk of Shariah law or the dangers of Kurdish separatism. Instead it has resorted to recruiting female candidates who wear the Islamic headscarf and calling for the Kurdish new year to be declared a national holiday.""None of this is likely to make much impression on voters, most of whom will stick with the AK Party. Nor will it affect Mr. Erdoğan's policies. Ever since he was handsomely re-elected in the 2007 general election, his critics say that the prime minister has become increasingly autocratic, drifting away from the reformist agenda that first brought the AK Party to single-party rule in 2002. It does not help that the European Union is continuing to prevaricate in the long-drawn-out talks about Turkey's membership application, sapping enthusiasm for reform in Ankara."
"No wonder Mr. Erdoğan is so confident. Many worry that another big electoral win may swell his head further."
Some points, taken from The Economist, highlight the issue that exclusively occupies the agenda, with focus on the invincibility of a man who has ruled the country for the past six years.
While the world around it is dealing on an almost hourly basis with the creeping and creepy economic crisis, the only thing that seems to matter in Turkey is the local elections. With the exception of a few, none of the newspapers or major TV stations care to dedicate significant space to one worrisome event after the other.
It is all about what to expect the day after March 29.
Let me raise the curtain for the elections and follow up with ongoing analysis about where Turkey may be heading.
There are three basic elements to be challenged in the polls.
First, the question of whether the AK Party will suffer any "voter fatigue" or emerge even more powerful -- bypassing the psychologically critical threshold of 50 percent of the vote and taking four-fifths of the country's municipalities under control. And if so, how will the party judge the victory and proceed with macro policies?
Second, what will happen if the main opposition party, the CHP, fails the test by falling down toward 15 percent?
Third, how will the predominantly Kurdish provinces perform on the day of the polls? If the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) loses some "key posts" -- such as Batman -- and underperforms in general vis-à-vis its sole rival in the region, what will the political consequences of that de facto referendum be?
Answers -- albeit vague -- are to be sought primarily in surveys done by A&G and the Ankara-based MetroPoll.
The AK Party's confidence is justified. It enjoys over 50 percent of the country's support (with all the votes distributed), while the CHP is struggling to maintain its 2007 levels. And we have no reliable data yet on the Kurdish vote.
Hoping to return to the matter over and over until March 29, I would like to focus briefly on the survey done by MetroPoll in the largest municipality, the outcome of which, in terms of votes, is almost a "given".
It is an alarming survey in another regard: the undecided.
MetroPoll did the survey in the İstanbul metropolitan area with some 1,500 people, with careful regard to the size of the districts and smaller neighborhoods, by keeping the age and gender balances in consideration.
The survey tells us that the AK Party leads in the screened field by 37.3 percent, while the CHP rests on 19.5 percent and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is as low as 1.2 percent.
The gap between the AK Party and the others remains unchanged. But when we look at those who say they are "undecided," without a response or simply in "protest," the figure is a surprising and worrisome 38.4 percent.
To my recollection, the number of those who were in a "hesitant" or "protest" mood so close (only three weeks) to the polls was never so high in the past. In this high figure is hidden a party actually bigger than any other.
Therefore, this phenomenon must have priority when analyzing the trends and patterns leading up the day of reckoning.
It is rather reasonable to presume that there are three main causes for this new picture. The first is -- as the responses to other questions in the poll indicate -- the apparent concern about the corruption and cronyism identified with the policies of the AK Party, both nationally and locally. The second is uncertainty based on the mixed signals and perceived indifference of the AK Party to the global economic upheaval. Voters do feel reluctant about fully trusting the AK Party on this issue. The third is the nature of political rhetoric adopted by the leader of the AK Party and his adversaries: The perceived arrogance of the debate, together with the threatening language and shallow logic, with no clear sign of a possible consensus in the post-March 29 era, lead voters to feel more fatigued than ever.
In this sense, we are headed toward an election of which the negative impact on Turkish democracy will be more significant than the positive impact.
