Public hesitant over gov’t plan for Kurdish question, survey reveals

A full 53.8 percent of respondents said they do not support the initiative at all, while 7.4 percent said they did not have an opinion on it. The poll was conducted by Professor Özer Sencar, Dr. Sıtkı Yıldız and Dr. Ünal Bilir of the Ankara-based MetroPOLL Strategic and Social Research Center. The poll focused primarily on recent political developments in Turkey. 

According to the survey, the staunch opponents of the Kurdish initiative were supporters of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). A majority of followers of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) lend strong support to the initiative.

The AK Party government announced its intention to settle the Kurdish question through peaceful methods during the summer. The expectation is that the democratic initiative will grant the country’s Kurds increased cultural and linguistic rights.

Turkey’s Kurdish question has existed since the first years of the republic, but it turned violent in 1984 after the establishment of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). More than 40,000 civilians and security forces have been killed in clashes so far.

One of the questions in the survey was on the ability of the government to manage the initiative process. More than a third of participants said the government was successful in managing the process, while almost 60 percent said the government was unsuccessful. Among the reasons cited by respondents for the failure to manage the initiative well were a lack of preparation on the part of the government, the AK Party’s failure to fully inform the public of its intentions, the position of the PKK as interlocutor in the process and public fears that the initiative would lead to divisions in society.

A MetroPOLL survey has shown that the Turkish public is hesitant about the Kurdish initiative but would still show strong support for the AK Party if parliamentary elections were held today.

Respondents were also asked their opinion on the closure of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in December by the Constitutional Court, on charges of separatism. The DTP was often the focus of harsh criticism due to its close links to the terrorist PKK. Almost 70 percent of respondents said the top court was right to disband the party. Slightly more than 25 percent said the opposite, while 5.3 percent said they had no idea.

Nineteen deputies of the now-defunct party joined the BDP after the closure of their party. Two others were banned from politics for five years.

However, those polled were divided into two camps over the closure of political parties in Turkey. Asked whether a political party should be banned even if they fail to distance themselves from acts of violence and terror, 48.9 percent replied yes while 45.7 replied no.

AK Party still well ahead of its rivals

Pollsters also questioned the public over their voting behavior. If parliamentary elections were to be held today, 32.3 percent of those polled said they would vote for the AK Party, a figure very close to the one in a similar poll in November of last year. The figure is, however, much lower than in the July 22, 2007 poll, in which the ruling party won around 47 percent of the vote.

This figure is likely to increase by at least 4 or 5 percent at the ballot box for the AK Party, through the split of the vote of those who are undecided, which the survey shows to be around 20 percent. Among the undecided, many said they will not go to the ballot box or will cast a blank vote.

The CHP would receive only 16.2 percent of the votes cast, and the MHP would garner 14.4 percent, indicating an approximately 6 percent decrease for the CHP and 4 percent decrease for the MHP in public support when compared to the results of the MetroPOLL survey in November. According to pollsters, the main reasons behind such a decrease are a series of gaffes by politicians, the most remarkable of which came from CHP Deputy Chairman Onur Öymen on Nov. 10, praising the bloody move of the state against the Dersim Rebellion. Öymen implied that a 1937 rebellion of Alevis in the eastern province of Tunceli, then known as Dersim, was a terrorist revolt. His remarks offended the Alevi community, who are traditional supporters of the CHP.

One of the most surprising findings of the survey was growing support for Mustafa Sarıgül, mayor of İstanbul’s Şişli district, who is expected to transform his Turkey Movement for Change (THD) into a political party in April. A total of 5.8 percent of respondents said they would vote for Sarıgül in the elections.

Public supports protests by workers, pharmacists

Concerning a question over a series of protests by workers who were laid off in the privatization of Tekel, Turkey’s alcohol and tobacco monopoly, 60.6 percent said they support the protests. More than 36 percent said they do not support the protests, and 2.9 declined to comment.

Asked about protests by Turkey’s pharmacists, who shut their pharmacies for one day in December in protest of a government plan that would serve to reduce their profits, 56.4 percent of respondents said the pharmacists were right to protest the government’s move. More than 37 percent, however, said they did not think the pharmacists were justified in their protest.

Ambivalence persists on KCK operations

When asked about the handcuffing of 35 suspects, including some DTP mayors, by security forces while they were on their way to give testimony to public prosecutors as part of a probe into the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), allegedly the urban arm of the PKK, 24.8 said the handcuffing incident was against human rights. A total of 66.6 percent, however, gave full support to the handcuffing, saying it was for security measures.

The handcuffing of Kurdish mayors caused a wave of indignation among the country’s Kurdish population as many found it uncalled for.

More than half of respondents, however, said the incident would have a negative impact on the government’s Kurdish initiative. Slightly more than 30 percent said it would have a positive impact on the initiative.

According to the poll, optimism about Turkey’s future was not high. In response to the question “In which direction overall do you think Turkey is headed?” 65.8 percent said Turkey would change for the worse, while 29.9 percent said for the better.

The poll was conducted from Jan. 3-8 by telephone among a random national sampling of 1,614 adults residing in cities, towns and villages. The margin of error for the overall poll was 2.5 percentage points, with a 95 confidence level.