The CHP’s ‘Baykal-less’ election campaign in Kocaeli!

The interior decoration of this coffeehouse is classic; there is a television enclosed in a metal box on the wall, the walls are stained with cigarette smoke and there are lots of tables in red tablecloths, though these have largely been pulled to the sides of the coffeehouse to make room for the event. In recognition of Sirmen’s impending arrival, there are a couple of protocol tables that have been set aside, and the walls are covered in posters for both Sirmen and the CHP candidate for the head of the Kartepe Municipality. Interestingly, there is not a trace of CHP leader Deniz Baykal to be seen here. When we ask about this, we learn that in fact this is not just the situation here in this coffeehouse in Kartepe, but in general in the CHP’s campaign in Kocaeli this season, which is not utilizing Baykal’s image. There are two primary reasons for this. The first and most important is the cold relationship between Baykal and Sirmen. The second is the apparent negative attitude held toward Baykal among voters in the area. In fact, Sirmen is running an election campaign based on his own personal charisma.

The well-known tension between Baykal and Sirmen surfaced once again at a recent CHP rally in Kocaeli. The fact that Sirmen was not allowed to speak sparked great displeasure among CHP members.

 In the meantime, as we await Sirmen, who is now late, the task of “distracting” the crowds at the coffeehouse falls to a CHP official. While the people listen to this party official, a group of women in headscarves make their way into the coffeehouse, with CHP party buttons pinned to their coats. They are, for the first time in their lives, trying to find seats for themselves in a men’s coffeehouse, and it doesn’t take long for them to understand that there is definitely no room for them at the protocol tables, where some women without headscarves are already sitting. They finally sit somewhere near the back of the room. Outside, the sound of clapping indicates that Sirmen must finally be here. He had been in Gebze campaigning all day long. Now he enters the room to the sound of loud cheering. He keeps his words very brief, clearly trying not to bore listeners with unnecessary details. In a speech that is both calm and careful, he explains some of his great successes thus far, despite his relatively limited budget. He also draws attention to the failure of his competitors, who have had much larger budgets, to actually accomplish things. One subject he doesn’t enter into is that of neighborhood Quran courses, a topic that put Kocaeli on the national agenda in Turkey recently. As it is, the CHP ranks in Kocaeli are not touching on either the topic of the Quran courses or the party’s headscarf initiative. One party member we spoke with at the election bureau in Kocaeli said, “These things were never debated amongst us.”

 As for the election favorite in Kocaeli, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), there don’t appear to be any surprises lurking on this front. When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held his first election rally here, the Kocaeli square was packed full of people, despite the heavy rain on that day. One official from the AK Party in Kocaeli noted that, while the party appeared headed for a significant victory in Kocaeli, it had to be wary of its closest competitor, which was not a candidate from any other party, but in fact languor that might develop within its own ranks.

The real trump card held by the AK Party in Kocaeli lies in the work carried out by the Kocaeli Municipality over the past five years. The Kocaeli residents we stopped to speak to on the streets acknowledged that, even if they weren’t going to vote for the AK Party, the municipality had been doing a great job. In the eyes of Kocaeli residents, the current mayor, İbrahim Karaosmanoğlu, is a hard worker. Following the restructuring of the İzmir Municipality, and with the creation of the larger Kocaeli Municipality, residential areas that had previously fallen under the category of village services were transferred to the authority of the Kocaeli Municipality. And now perhaps some of the biggest support for Karaosmanoğlu comes from the people living in these areas, who used to have vociferous complaints about insufficient services in water supply, natural gas and roads, but who have seen Karaosmanoğlu take care of many of these issues.

One thing that makes Kocaeli unique is that, like İstanbul, everyone living within the city limits will be voting on the leadership of the metropolitan municipality in these coming elections. It used to be that the Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality included only the city itself and a few surrounding districts, but now the municipality has expanded to include all the surrounding districts, as well the surrounding villages. Actually, this development is a huge disadvantage for Sirmen. As for the other parties competing for the leadership of Kocaeli in the March 29 elections, most people believe that, outside of the AK Party and the CHP, no other party stands much of a chance here. Of course, with its large population, and looking at past voting trends here, all parties involved in the race attach a great deal of importance to Kocaeli.  

In the end, it can be said that these upcoming elections look set to give the people of Kocaeli an easier choice than they have sometimes faced in the past. This is because the two frontrunners here are both known well by local residents. There is Karaosmanoğlu, who has been at the city’s helm now for the past five years, and then there is Sirmen, who previously served as mayor of Kocaeli for three terms. At this point, though, it appears that those who want things to stay as they are outnumber those who long for the past.

CHP candidate Sefa Sirmen’s offer about opening Quran courses in every district attracted both criticism and applause from the public.

Winner’s surname is already decided, but we’ll learn the first name soon

The Sakarya Municipality is set for a decidedly interesting mayoral race. The two favorites in this election are AK Party candidate Zeki Toçoğlu and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) candidate Enver Toçoğlu.  More than just sharing the same surname, these two men are in fact cousins on their fathers’ sides. It was the MHP that first put its Tocoğlu candidate forward in this race, after which the AK Party, which had been searching for a name to replace current Sakarya Mayor Aziz Duran, tapped Serdivan Mayor Zeki Toçoğlu as their candidate. When Enver Toçoğlu commented publicly that the AK Party’s choice of candidates was not “ethical,” it didn’t take long for Zeki Toçoğlu to toss an answer straight back, arguing that the unethical thing was for his cousin to be a candidate for a different party in every election, asking, “There was already a mayor in the family, wasn’t that enough?”   

Aziz Duran has been a much-loved mayor of Sakarya throughout his three terms, known for his work on post-earthquake infrastructure projects and some very important social programs. However, the fatigue from years of service, as well as the wear and tear caused by the arrests of some top-level municipality officials in anti-corruption operations in the city, meant that this time around he would not run, especially given the entry of the MHP onto the scene with a very strong candidate. Unlike other mayors in different spots around Turkey, Duran notably greeted this decision, which was made in the AK Party headquarters, with grace. In fact, Duran is offering his own strong support for the campaign currently being led by Zeki Toçoğlu. 

In short, while you could say that the surname of the mayor-to-be in Sakarya is already clear, the first name won’t be known until March 29.

No surprises on the horizon for the Bolu-Düzce region

The desire of every resident in Bolu in these elections is the same: to find a candidate who will rescue the city from the image of being stuck somewhere between Ankara and İstanbul with no development. Despite boasting the ski area of Kartalkaya and Abant Lake, Bolu has never really become a tourist spot in the true sense of the word. And without much of a developed industrial sector, its economic structure is largely composed of government clerks and students. Bolu voters tend to vote by party affiliation, which is why the AK Party candidate, Alaadin Yılmaz, is seen as the favorite this time around. The AK Party took some 55 percent of the local vote in the city in both the 2004 and 2007 elections. The fact that Yılmaz is the candidate from the ruling party and his generally successful profile are other factors in what appears to be his likely victory here. Yılmaz’s closest competitor for the mayoral position in Bolu is the CHP’s candidate, Tanju Özcan, and although the local press has been filled with plenty of tough polemics between the two men, the needle is pointing strongly in favor of Yılmaz. In the meantime, Düzce, hit by a strong earthquake in 1999, has experienced political earthquakes of a sort in its local politics, with the failure of current Düzce Mayor Mehmet Keleş, an AK Party member, to get a nod from the AK Party headquarters to stand again as a candidate this time around. While it looked for a while that Keleş would run as an independent candidate, his party was able to convince him not to, making way instead for AK Party candidate İsmail Bayram. While Bayram is currently leading the race for mayor at this point, it does appear likely that the AK Party will have to fight hard to protect its votes in Düzce, especially since opposition parties have introduced their own strong candidates into the political arena this year. From the MHP, there is the very popular businessman Ömer Küçük, while former Sakaryaspor president and experienced municipality leader Selahattin Aydın is leading the helm of the Felicity Party (SP) in this city.