Turkey: could a pro-EU AKP insider overthrows Erdogan and make the Turkish referendum victory backfire for him in 2019

Turkish President Erdogan visiting the US from May 16

Al-Montor in an editorial questions if Turkey’s fractured opposition could unite and produce a leader like French presidential winner Emmanuel Macron, driven by shared apprehension over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule? Can the critical presidential election in 2019 mobilize the opposition against him?

It's possible on paper, for the constitutional changes narrowly approved in the April 16 referendum have changed the rules of the game. Under the proportional representation system of the outgoing parliamentary regime, removing Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) from power was virtually impossible under existing political balances.  

The new rules, however, allow an abrupt change in the seat of power by offering ground for alliances in the second round of the presidential vote. In other words, the new constitutional order that Erdogan wanted so badly and ultimately obtained risks becoming a political trap for him.

This possibility has stirred heated debate in Turkey since the referendum, with the opposition encouraged by the first serious signs that Erdogan can be defeated. 

 Despite the unfair campaign conditions and allegations of electoral fraud, the “yes” camp came up with only 51% of the vote, about 10 fewer percentage points than the combined vote the AKP and its referendum ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), got in the general elections in 2015. In addition, the “no” vote prevailed in 17 major urban centers, including the country’s three biggest cities.

Thee fragility of Erdogan’s victory has given a boost to a gloomy opposition that expected a much worse outcome and animated the political scene. Veteran politician Deniz Baykal, former head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and still an influential parliament member, argued in a May 1 interview that the opposition should unite around a common candidate for the 2019 election, the first under the amended constitution.

If CHP chair Kemal Kilicdaroglu does not plan to run for president, he should consider stepping down to allow for a stronger mobilization for the polls, Baykal argued. In another surprise statement, he suggested that former President Abdullah Gul, once Erdogan’s right-hand man, could be considered a joint candidate for the “no” camp.

With his veiled affirmation of Gul — an AKP founder at odds with Erdogan — as a possible candidate to unite the opposition, Baykal put into words something that many have silently thought of as a way to stop Erdogan. The mere utterance of this prospect was enough to rattle AKP ranks.

Baykal’s suggestion for a leadership change in the CHP also rattled the main opposition, sparking an internal power struggle and calls for an extraordinary party convention. The party’s in-house conflicts and the issue of whom it will back in the 2019 polls suddenly became intertwined.

Even more importantly, the hard-pressed CHP leader made it clear that the search for alliances for 2019 had already begun. “It would be wrong to behave as if the entire 49% [of the ‘no’ vote] belongs to us and embark on determining a candidate accordingly,” Kilicdaroglu said in a May 9 address to fellow party members in the parliament, stressing that he had consulted with the heads of more than 50 civil society organizations and was planning to visit fellow party leaders to discuss the process.

Political activity on the opposition’s left will clearly increase in this framework. Yet, it is the conservative camp that will make any alliance against Erdogan relevant and strong. At the referendum, 10% of AKP voters defied Erdogan, voting against the amendments. Will this group expand ahead of 2019? And even more importantly, will it become politicized? Those are vital questions for the coming period that are simmering anew in conservative quarters following Baykal’s mention of Gul as a possible joint candidate.

AKP officials urged Gul to speak out and clarify whether he does intend to confront Erdogan in the presidential race, while Erdogan slammed the idea as an effort to sow discord in the AKP ranks.

True to form, Gul remained cautious, neither opening nor closing the door. Speaking on May 5, he reiterated that he was keeping away from active politics, but at the same time stressed his “responsibility to share his knowledge and experience for the sake of the country.”

The AKP’s first prime minister and president, Gul has remained an important figure for the party and Turkish politics since completing his presidential term in 2014. Having fallen out with Erdogan over his policies after 2013, Gul represents the reformist and liberal leaning of the AKP’s original philosophy. As such, he enjoys a certain sympathy in opposition quarters and stands a chance of luring support from across the political spectrum should he decide to challenge Erdogan in the presidential race. So far, the non-confrontational Gul has held back from speaking out about his differences with Erdogan and creating discord and division in the AKP. The main reason was probably his belief that he had little chance of prevailing over Erdogan.

But given the growing discontent among conservatives and former AKP heavyweights, Erdogan’s continued pursuit of one-man rule could now upset the equilibrium. In his May 5 remarks, Gul seemed to speak on behalf of a certain group and orientation. Referring to vicious attacks from pro-government quarters, he said, “I condemn the unmentionable words and the foul language used against the AKP's real pioneers and founders and the unethical behavior within the party. Everybody now knows how this is being orchestrated.” Alluding to Erdogan, he expressed regret at “the silence in the face of all this.”

If an alliance emerges spontaneously around him, the possibility of Gul making a political move remains on the table in the new environment after the referendum. As Erdogan’s authoritarianism deepens and economic or foreign policy crises erupt, Gul is likely to remain relevant ahead of the critical election in 2019.

The key question, however, is whether the opposition — displeased and worried but still scattered and confused — can organize politically to mount a serious challenge. One must admit that this is no easy prospect. The 49% “no” camp includes antagonistic political movements whose reasons for rejecting the constitutional changes do not necessarily overlap, meaning that their ability to agree on and vote for a joint candidate cannot be assumed.

Moreover, Turkey’s political culture lacks any strong traditions of electoral alliances and compromise. Reconciliation between the MHP’s dissident naysayers and the Kurds, or between the conservatives and the left, seems quite difficult. Finally, the AKP remains the country’s strongest and best-organized political machine, with its popular support still at about 44% despite the recent hemorrhage.

All those developments are putting Turkish politics on a new and uncharted track.

US president Trump, who was the first Western Head Of State to congratulate Mr. Erdogan on his so-called referendum, victory, also did not mention the Turkish President's human rights abuses, including the imprisonment of journalists, politicians, civil servants and educators.

President Erdogan will be hosted by the US President in the White House when he visits the US starting May 16..

Given the unstable political situation in Turkey, President Trump might once again be betting on the wrong horse and eventually shoot himself in the foot ?

EU-Digest

Global Finance: ‘Brexit’ Imperils London’s Claim as Banker to the Planet - by Peter S.Goodman

Since Brexit money is flowing away from London City  - what was once considered the center of global banking and finance.

Following the election of Manuel Macron in France this became even more apparent when he said:"It's the British who lose the most as a result of BREXIT. The British are making a serious mistake over the long run."

Somewhere between one fifth and one third of London financial transactions involves clients in the EU and many banks including Citibank are now seeking new locations in the EU.

Read more: ‘Brexit’ Imperils London’s Claim as Banker to the Planet - The New York Times

France: Macron’s four European priorities - by Aline Robert

Prfesident of France: Emmanuel Macron

According to polling company BVA, the top three issues for Macron’s voters were the European Union, unemployment and social security.

In the short term, France’s new president will address the subjects of employment, security and refugees, as liberal MEP Sylvie Goulard explained to EURACTIV.fr before the election.

The most ambitious of Macron’s promises concerns the governance of the eurozone. As things stand, the unfinished architecture of the Economic and Monetary Union leaves a lot to be desired. Decisions are made behind closed doors, without the slightest degree of democratic control, providing ample ammunition and an easy target for Eurosceptics.

For Macron, reformed eurozone governance should include the creation of a real eurozone budget, capable of absorbing asymmetric shocks and avoiding imbalances that harm the whole currency zone.

But France can hardly claim leadership on such an urgent and sensitive issue until it has regained budgetary credibility with Brussels and Berlin. Germany, which is sceptical of the creation of a common fund that would see it lose out under current circumstances, would never agree to such reforms as long as Paris fails to get its books in order.

The En Marche leader wants to organise “conventions” across the whole of the EU, to discuss the actions and priorities the bloc should adopt. Concretely, this would be an attempt to bring grass-roots ideas into government; a method that worked for En Marche during the campaign.

It is also aimed at provoking debate between Europeans by involving people of different nationalities in spontaneous and flexible discussions. Here, there is no question of imposing a single format, as each country would organise its convention in its own way.

Brushed aside as an unrealistic display of utopianism by Macron’s critics, the idea relies on a kind of political marketing that consists of scanning society for problems and potential solutions.

A measure of the success of these conventions will be whether they attract anyone beyond the policy geeks and political science students that seem to make up the exclusive audience of the formal debates organised by the European Commission.

Rethinking representative democracy:

F or Macron, the European electoral system is already proportional enough. In fact, this is what has led to the presence in the European Parliament of such large numbers of politicians who could not get elected in their home countries, including Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

But a different kind of reform, the new president believes, is possible. He plans to have the 72 seats left vacant after the departure of the UK in 2019 set aside for candidates on federal, pan-European lists.

However, the other European capitals may well have different plans for these seats, such as to redistribute them or even abolish them altogether. After all, the Parliament has no less than 751 seats already.

Finally, as a newcomer, Macron will have to make his mark on the international scene. He may lack experience outside France but he has nonetheless spent the last six months fighting the extreme-right at home.

And he has promised to promote France’s republican values, on issues like the rule of law, to countries such as Poland, Hungary and Russia. The president-elect also referred to the possibility of invoking the “sanctions foreseen under the treaties” to deal with the behaviour of Poland and Hungary.

So far, the Commission has taken the first step of activating its rule of law safeguards in Poland. Further sanctions would have to be agreed upon unanimously by the member states.

While he has said little on the matter of Russia so far, Macron will surely not forget the systematic smear campaign led by Kremlin-sponsored media outlets Sputnik and Russia Today. En Marche ended up banning journalists from these organisations from its campaign events.

Both organizations are directly financed by Russia with the aim of spreading Moscow’s propaganda. The Kremlin, on the other hand, openly supported the more Russia-friendly candidates Marine Le Pen and François Fillon, both of whom were ready to end sanctions against Russia.

Read more: Macron’s four European priorities – EURACTIV.com

US and Russian Relations: Does Trump know Putin? “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

Donald Trump with Vladimir Putin "he never met"

The Washington post reported that in a recent tweet , President Trump repeated his claim that he doesn’t “know Vladimir Putin,” an argument he’s made ever since closeness to Russia and his presidentcy became a political liability. On the other hand, back when knowing world leaders was an asset, though, Trump bragged about his relationship with Putin.

The Washington Post gave a  chronology of what Donald said about his relationship with Putin in a variety of interviews since 2013, which shows quite some alarming flip-flop answers by the US President. 

June 2013: “Will he become my new best friend?
November 2013: “I do have a relationship”
March 2014: “Putin even sent me a present” 
May 2014: “I spoke … with President Putin”
November 2015: “I got to know him very well”
July 2016 - "the big switch": Trump denies knowing Putin in a number of documented interviews  as he states: “I don’t know who Putin is - I have nothing to do with Putin. I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t know anything about him other than he will respect me. He said one nice thing about me. He said I’m a genius. I said thank you very much to the newspaper, and that was the end of it. I never met Putin.”
February 2017: “I don’t know Putin”

Maybe the famous line from the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, when an officer of the palace guard says: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, after the ghost of the dead king appears, walking over the palace walls, fits this situation best? 

Bottom Line: Why is President Trump lying about his personal connections in Russia?  

EU-Digest

Climate change: China vows to defend Paris agreement

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to protect the landmark Paris agreement, which aims to curb climate change and fossil fuel emissions.

He made the promise in a phone call with incoming French President Emmanuel Macron, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump is still deciding whether to withdraw from the accord - an election campaign promise.

Climate experts worry such a move would throw the agreement into chaos.

Read more: Climate change: China vows to defend Paris agreement - BBC News

EU: Post-Trump, post-Brexit, the EU may end up more unified than ever - by Joshua Keating

EU- United we stand - divided we fall

As France’s next president, Emmanuel Macron, took the stage outside the Louvre on Sunday night to the strains of Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy,” the European Union anthem, it was easy to view the centrist, pro-EU technocrat’s victory over the right-wing populist Marine Le Pen as an endorsement by the French public of the European project.

This would be a little misleading. Between Le Pen, François Fillon, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon—the second-, third-, and fourth-place candidates in the first round of the election—and various fringe parties, more than two-thirds of French voters went for euro-skeptic candidates. Those candidates’ supporters went for Macron in the second round less because of enthusiasm for him than the fact that most of them, though not as many as in previous elections, considered Le Pen unacceptable.

The contradiction at the heart of the EU—that a project dedicated to the spread and promotion of democracy continues despite the will of most European—that a project dedicated to the spread and promotion of democracy continues despite the will of most Europeans—has not gone away.

The project persists in large part because, as the French election demonstrated, its opponents can’t agree on what an alternative should look like. And while it’s still early days, the global political events of the past year may have unexpectedly strengthened the EU by giving it something to stand against.

A few months ago, the EU looked on the verge of collapse. The Greek financial crisis and a massive influx of migrants had opened up fissures between members. Then came Brexit, which European leaders warned could set off a race to the exits.

Then came the election of Donald Trump, a president who threatened to abandon the traditional U.S. support for European integration and publicly attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel while praising Vladimir Putin. All the while, populist, nationalist parties, many with murky links to the Kremlin, were surging in the polls in a number of countries.

But in 2017, the wave has crested a bit. In the Netherlands’ March election, far-right candidate Geert Wilders had a disappointing finish. A pro-European center-right party won parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, and a pro-European president won in EU applicant state Serbia. Merkel appears in good shape ahead for her re-election bid in September, and even if her center-left opponent, Martin Schulz, could squeak out a victory, he’s also a strong backer of European integration.

Brexit will undoubtedly reduce the global economic clout of the union, but it could also make the EU politically stronger by removing one of the staunchest opponents of European integration. For instance, the EU is moving to coordinate defense budgets and military command structures, a process Britain often opposed, viewing it as a back-door means of creating a transnational European army. European governments have also been able to agree on a common negotiating stance over Britain’s exit remarkably quickly. Feeling a little more stable after Macron’s victory, European leaders may be more confident in enforcing tough terms on Britain to dissuade any other wayward members from getting similar ideas.

As for Trump, in practice he has turned out to be neither as anti-Europe or as pro-Russian as Brussels feared. He’s reportedly warming to the idea of striking a trade agreement with Europe rather than the bilateral deals that he, and particularly nationalist adviser Steve Bannon, said he preferred during the campaign.

Trump has had an impact on European politics by providing establishment politicians with a counterexample to run against. Trump and Le Pen have each praised each other, and she even paid a visit to Trump Tower—though not to Trump himself—in January. She even went as far as to describe them as part of a common global movement. But 82 percent of French voters have a negative view of Trump, according to a poll released last week, so it wasn’t exactly surprising to see anti–Le Pen ads warning French voters not to “Trump themselves” or to see Macron touting the support of Barack Obama.

A Trump-led movement is not one the Frenchor any of the Europeans particularly want to be part of.

The European public may still be suspicious of Europe, and European leaders—who are viewed as distant and undemocratic—still need to do a much better job of articulating a positive vision of what they’re for. But thanks to Brexit and Trump, it’s now at least easy for those leaders to articulate what they’re against. 

Read more: Post-Trump, post-Brexit, the EU may end up more unified than ever.

French Presidential Elections: Emmanuel Macron elected French president with a landslide 65.5% of the vote

France's newly elected President: Emmanuel Macron

With polls now closed across France, centrist Emmanuel Macron has been elected French President with an estimated 65.5% of the vote, with his rival, far-right Marine Le Pen, taking 34.5%.

• Macron, 39, has become the youngest president of France's Fifth Republic.France's 47 million 
• voters chose between radically different platforms: the free-trade, pro-EU policies of Macron's
• En Marche! (Forward!) party, and the protectionist nationalism of Le Pen's National Front.
• Voting stations opened at 8am (6am GMT) in mainland France Sunday, and most closed at Frenchj7pm, while those in larger cities closed at 8pm. Voters overseas began voting SatOfficial turnout figures have been lower than in the April 23 first round. The noon turnout was 28.2%, slightly less than the 28.5% in the first round. At 5pm, the turnout was 65.3%, lower than the 69.4% at the same time on April 23.
• It has been a historic election by several measures: both candidates were from parties outside the political mainstream. It follows an unprecedented campaign marked by scandal and repeated surprises.
• French law prohibited French media from quoting the presidential candidates or their supporters until the polls closes at 8pm Sunday.

Macron has reportedly told Germany’s Angela Merkel on the phone that he will soon travel to Berlin for a face-to-face meeting to get Europe moving again.

Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy tweets: “Congratulations to @EmmanuelMacron, France’s new president. France and Spain should work together for a more stable, prosper and united Europe.”

President Trump used Twitter Sunday to extend a hand to France's new president-elect, Emmanuel Macron.  'Congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on his big win today as the next President of France. I look very much forward to working with him!' Trump wrote.

The former deputy national security adviser to President Obama believes the defeat of Marine Le Pen, and victory for Emmanuel Macron, in the French presidential election shows the end of a wave of nationalistic populism.

The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, tweeted his congratulations, saying: “Happy that the French have chosen a European future. Together for a stronger and fairer Europe.”
J
uncker also sent a letter to Macron only 15 minutes after the exit poll result was published, in which he told the new French president that he welcomed “the ideas that you have advocated, a strong Europe, and progressive, that protects all its citizens”.

A spokesman for the German chancellor Angela Merkel was also quick to hail the result as a “victory for a strong and united Europe”. “Congratulations, @EmmanuelMacron. Your victory is a victory for a strong and united Europe and for French-German friendship,” tweeted Steffen Seibert in French and German.

Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, wrote: “Vive la France, Vive L’Europe!”, adding that it was a “a strong signal for our common values.” Separately, the German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel celebrated Macron’s win for keeping France “at the heart of Europe”.

“Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! France chose that today. The great nation was, is, and remains in the middle and at the heart of Europe,” wrote Gabriel on Twitter, using France’s national slogan.

European council president Donald Tusk also offered his congratulations, saying the French had chosen “liberty, equality and fraternity” and “said no to the tyranny of fake news”.

EU-Digest