By Barçın Yinanc
Turkey is hit by fallout from inflation-fighting monetary policy. From textiles to automobiles, there are thousands of layoffs in several sectors. The high cost of living is a major source of complaint while the health sector is in crisis too as even patients in need of urgent operations can only get an appointment in six months from state hospitals.
Even hard-core AKP voters complain about the quality of education.
With these burning issues, the main opposition would have enjoyed huge popularity in any other country. This is hardly the case with the main opposition CHP. The AKP is said to have closed the gap that the CHP enjoyed in the public opinion polls since local elections were held in March.
Political scientists and experts blame it on the party’s leadership problem.
In a country struggling with huge problems that directly impact the everyday lives of the men and women in the street, it should have been easier for CHP officials to speak with one voice on the country’s foreign policy.
The fact that the party has several heads and different power centers is affecting the party’s foreign policy standing. In fact, party officials complain that there is ambiguity in terms of which of the three major personalities has the upper hand in deciding the party lines and voicing them in public.
ANOTHER DIPLOMAT OUT OF SYNC WITH CHP
One is retired ambassador Namık Tan, who served as Turkey’s envoy to Washington and Tel Aviv. He joined the party at the very last minute, a few months before the 2023 general elections, upon the invitation of former CHP Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Elected as a member of parliament from Istanbul, Tan could have played a much more important role had the AKP lost the elections.
Tan’s standing in the party changed after Kılıçdaroğlu lost to Özgür Özel during the party congress in November. Özel is said to have won the elections at the party congress, thanks to the support provided by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu who is seen as the main opposition’s strongest candidate against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Enjoying high popularity levels around Turkey, Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş is also seen as a strong candidate. The CHP’s old and new guards are trying to figure out which side to pick to secure their future, while some have remained still loyal to Kılıçdaroğlu.
HARD TIMES FOR TWO OUTSIDERS
The fact that Özel chose an academic, professor İlhan Uzgel as the party’s shadow foreign minister is indicative of Tan’s standing with the party’s new leadership. Tan is currently heading CHP’s group at the parliament’s foreign affairs commission since Uzgel is not a deputy.
Once the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Tan as a politician does not mince his words. Calling the AKP’s “blue homeland” strategy a fairy tale raised eyebrows within his party. Tan was not dismissed, yet his statement was not fully endorsed by the party either.
Since then, Tan has resorted to social media to make his criticisms heard. He makes extremely harsh statements, via his X (formerly Twitter) account, which should not make Professor Uzgel happy. He constantly bashes the AKP’s foreign policy and his severe criticism of the AKP appears to contradict Özel’s more conciliatory tone.
Uzgel is also very critical of AKP’s foreign policy positions but uses a more moderate tone.
According to CHP officials, while Tan is seen as a maverick with no political expectations left for the future, both he and Uzgel remain under the looming shadow of the third outsider, Selin Sayek Böke, the party’s secretary general.
THIRD OUTSIDER? YES AND NO
An economist by profession, Böke joined the CHP in 2014. As she survived the ups and downs of party politics in the CHP, she can no longer be called an outsider.
Since 2018, she has taken up important positions at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. As secretary-general, she has several roles, including internal party reform. But Böke is said to keep a grip on the party’s foreign relations as well as foreign policy standing. Ahead of the 2023 general elections, her name was among those expected to become foreign minister. Böke is said to be working closely with İmamoğlu.
After attending the Labour Party’s congress in the UK, Böke joined Özel who went to New York to attend the meeting of the Socialist International. Both Uzgel and Tan were also in Özel’s delegation.
Yet despite this image of unity, some CHP MPs who would like to be more knowledgeable about the party’s positions on foreign policy issues are said to be uneasy about the existence of these three poles.
