The AKP’s efforts to normalize diplomatic policy have made it harder to attack the government, according to a member of the opposition.
In addition, compared to his predecessor, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is less controversial in his statements and tries to keep a lower profile, said the same opposition figure.
Still, these two points are hardly sufficient to explain the CHP’s mediocre performance in foreign policy, where, according to a public opinion poll, the party performs worse with the electorate than it does in issues such as education or health.
ÖZEL PAYS NINE VISITS ABROAD
Yet, the main opposition leader will finish his first year in the job in November and has been more active on the external front than his predecessor Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who has never shown enthusiasm for diplomacy.
Özgür Özel visited Cyprus twice and in addition, conducted seven visits abroad. He attended two meetings of the Socialist International, addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and went to Bosnia Herzegovina to attend the 29th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. He is currently preparing to attend the Socialist International meeting in New York this month at a time when the annual general assembly of the United Nations will be taking place.
Still, Özel takes fire for failing to meet some of his foreign policy promises. He pledged to go to Gaza and to this day has failed to do so. He also called on all political parties and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to jointly go to Palestine, which was not realistic. He then started to talk about meeting Syria’s President Bashar Assad, who has so far preferred to focus on the conditions of normalization with Ankara. Özel has also offered to mediate between Erdoğan and Assad.
Given the public discontent about Syrian refugees, Özel makes the headlines each time he talks about Assad, confessed a CHP member. But the populist statements and empty promises risk harming his credibility on foreign policy.
CHP’S OSSIFIED AND CONTRADICTORY BASE
In addition, CHP’s core electorate presents an extra difficulty in foreign policy. Some CHP members have become attached to ossified stances.
For example, calling President Erdoğan the co-president of the Greater Middle East Project is raw meat to sections of the CHP electorate. But for other voters, and for many readers of Turkey in Depth, the concept might be hard to remember.
The AKP’s rise to power coincided with George W. Bush's Greater Middle East project. Launched in the wake of the invasion of Iraq it was marketed as a strategy to end autocracy in the region and bring democracy to those deprived of fundamental freedoms.
At the time, the AKP was being warmly received into the Western embrace as a role model of democratic Islam for the Muslim world. Opposition politicians were convinced that Erdoğan was being used by the Western powers for their malign strategies in the region.
As the supposed democratization project turned Iraq and Afghanistan into failed states, linking him to it meant attacking Erdoğan as a facilitator of the West’s disastrous policies.
Yet, the Greater Middle East Project was a still-born concept and Turkey under Erdoğan did not particularly do anything to be associated with it.
The CHP’s core voters believe Turkey belongs to the West but at the same time they harbor skepticism towards Western powers. This skepticism is based on historical reasons as well as frustrations from the recent past as the country’s secular classes feel rejected by European countries.
This contradictory stance makes policy formation hard for the CHP as it has to balance contrasting sentiments.
The party has to appear pro-Western to underline its difference from the AKP, which CHP voters feel has pulled Turkey away from Western democracies. Yet, appearing too pro-Western is not welcome either. This forces the CHP leadership to endorse critical rhetoric towards the West. For example, it is not uncommon for the most educated party figures and those with the most pro-Western lifestyles to call for “total independence” in foreign policy, which is a fallacy.
CHP voters dislike new concepts, said a CHP member. This explains why Namık Tan, a former diplomat turned opposition parliamentarian, was criticized even by his party members when he called the “blue homeland” doctrine a fantasy.
In addition to the challenges presented by its core constituency, the effort to draw in conservative voters will make CHP leadership’s balancing act even harder.
