Ankara Mayor Becomes Unlikely Rebel in Showdown With Erdogan

EghtesadOnline: Longtime Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek is resisting pressure to resign, fashioning himself into an unlikely rebel as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan turns a sweeping purge of Turkish society against his own party.

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23 October 2017

Gokcek, who’s been elected to the post in five consecutive elections since 1994, has been under pressure to step down since early this month, when Turkish media began to report speculation that he would go. His resignation seemed imminent when he met Erdogan at the presidential palace late on Oct. 5. But the mayor emerged from that meeting with his job, and later sent tweets saying he’d discussed a museum and other projects with the president, according to Bloomberg.

Gokcek’s refusal to abide by calls to quit from the all-powerful Erdogan, who has ruled by decree under emergency law since last year’s coup attempt, is a risky move that could see him forcibly removed from office, or facing an investigation. Pro-government media that once supported the mayor have turned against him, publishing stories hinting at corruption and connections to the group the government blames for the failed putsch.

Erdogan warned Oct. 19 that resistance by mayors he’s asked to resign would yield “severe” consequences. “I don’t even want to think about it,” he said.

Disregarding Voters

There’s also risk for Erdogan, who could alienate supporters, turn powerful allies against him and tarnish his own party with the allegations of graft and a public disregard for democracy. While Gokcek is one of Turkey’s most divisive politicians, some 1.4 million people voted for him at the last local election in 2014, which he narrowly won against a nationalist candidate. The next local ballot, in March 2019, will be seen as an important bellwether for Erdogan’s chances of reelection six months later.

Erdogan has probably seen polls showing “that some of these mayors are losing popularity,” said Mert Yildiz, a former economist for Roubini Global Economics who works as an independent consultant for municipalities. “Erdogan is thinking ahead, and he’s saying, ‘I don’t want to lose these cities so I need to get rid of these guys.”’

Gokcek has a Twitter following of more than 4 million and an affinity for insult matches and wild conspiracy theories. Earlier this year, he organized a trip for reporters from top U.S. media organizations promising that they’d meet top officials, including Erdogan. Instead, he brought the visitors to a municipal complex in Ankara, showed them a gruesome film depicting injuries and deaths from the night of the coup, and shared his views on issues including the 1999 earthquake in Turkey, which he says was triggered by Israel and the U.S.

Yeni Akit TV, a pro-Erdogan Islamic news outlet, has recently accused Gokcek of colluding with the main opposition party, the CHP, which the mayor himself has linked to the Gulen religious movement Erdogan’s party says masterminded the coup bid. A spokesperson and an adviser for Gokcek didn’t respond to requests for comment over the weekend.

2019 Elections

The government refers to the group by the abbreviation “FETO.” Such allegations, if taken up by a prosecutor, are a certain career-ender for politicians in Turkey, if not also a ticket to jail. More than 150,000 people have been fired, jailed or detained since the coup attempt.

Erdogan’s insistence that Gokcek step down is part of a larger shake-up he triggered after returning to the ruling party and declaring that “fatigue” had set in within its ranks. Last month, Kadir Topbas, the mayor of Istanbul since 2004, was the first of three mayors to step down. Saban Disli, a founder of the ruling AK party whose brother is in prison for allegedly being a coup-attempt ring leader, resigned Thursday as an adviser to Erdogan.

Dozens of the mayors in the nation’s southeast have also been replaced with so-called kayyums, or trustees, appointed by the central government. Most of those mayors were elected members of a pro-Kurdish party and many have been charged with terrorism. Erdogan also spearheaded a move to strip that party’s parliament members of their immunity and to send its leaders, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, to prison.

The showdown leaves Erdogan in a difficult spot as he prepares for 2019, according to Yildiz. The referendum in April, in which voters ultimately approved a series of constitutional amendments to hand Erdogan more power, showed that the ruling party is losing urban support. All of Turkey’s largest metropolitan areas, including Istanbul and Ankara, voted against.

“Erdogan has the kayyum card, he can appoint a kayyum” to replace Gokcek, Yildiz said. “The other card is the investigation card for FETO, and Gokcek in the past has sent lots of tweets in support of Gulen, so it’s easy. But he doesn’t want to use either on his own guys.”