The competition thus appears not to be between local candidates but national parties. The main reason for this is surely the over-centralized nature of public administration in Turkey, where municipalities have limited authority and are subject to a high degree of central oversight. Except for those who live in small municipalities, the electorate tends to vote in favor of parties and not particular candidates.The upcoming local elections may be said to have assumed the character of a referendum on several issues. First of all, this election may be said to be a referendum on the democratic regime itself. The people will indicate whether they want the country to be run by legitimately elected governments, or the regime to remain under bureaucratic tutelage. Just consider what the country has gone through since the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2002. Three military coup attempts took place in the 2003-2004 period. A statement placed on the Web site of the General Staff on the night of April 27, 2007 threatened a military coup if then-AKP deputy and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül was elected president by Parliament. Under the threat of a military takeover, the Constitutional Court decided to halt the presidential election in clear violation of the Constitution.
When the AKP went to early polls and won by a landslide in the parliamentary elections held in July 2007, the chief prosecutor, as if (in the words of Joost Lagendijk, the Dutch co-chairman of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee) "to teach a lesson to the people of Turkey, saying they have chosen wrongly in the elections," filed a closure case against the AKP, accusing it in an indictment that made no sense at all of engaging in activities against secularism. The Constitutional Court decided in June 2008 to declare null and void constitutional amendments adopted by four-fifths of Parliament to lift the headscarf ban for university students on grounds of violating the principles of secularism despite the fact that the Constitution only gives it the authority to judge constitutional amendments on procedural grounds. It failed to reach the necessary majority to ban the AKP, but with a near unanimous vote declared the AKP to have become a focal point of anti-secular activities. İstanbul prosecutors in October 2008 brought before the court the members of a clandestine terrorist organization called Ergenekon that aimed to create chaos in the country to pave the way for a military intervention to take place in 2009.
Second, the coming local elections may be said to be a referendum on what the people expect of the AKP government. The vote will indicate whether the government has a strong mandate from the people: 1) to continue or not with reforms toward fulfilling the EU membership criteria, and particularly with the adoption of a new, civilian and democratic constitution to replace the current one drawn up by the military in 1982; 2) to lift all restrictions on the expression of Kurdish identity and thus solve the Kurdish problem; 3) to take all measures necessary, including amnesty for militants who are not responsible for atrocities, to put an end to Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorism and to consolidate peace and stability in the country; and 4) to pursue efforts to eradicate the Ergenekon gang and the "deep state" -- the main threat to democracy.
Third, the coming local elections may be said to constitute a referendum also on the main opposition party. The people are likely to indicate through their votes whether they want Mr. Deniz Baykal and his clique to continue to lead the Republican People's Party (CHP). It will be very difficult for Baykal and his group to maintain their position if the party's share of the national vote declines significantly.
The AKP largely owed its 40 percent share of the vote in the local elections of 2004 and the 47 percent share of the vote in the parliamentary elections of 2007 to continued economic growth of 7 percent on average annually between 2002 and 2007. Economic conditions are now far different. The effects of the world economic crisis are increasingly being felt. The unemployment rate in urban centers has reached 13 percent, leaving nearly 3 million people jobless. This is why the AKP government is trying to counter the negative effects of the crisis by various subsidies and handouts to the needy and to mobilize all advantages of being in power in the election campaign. Surveys so far seem to indicate that the AKP may preserve if not increase its share of the national vote. If this turns out to be the case, the AKP government will have no excuse but to carry on with reforms it has for long been promising.
