Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the new leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), met yesterday as part of a series of meetings the PM is having with opposition leaders to talk about the resurgent Kurdish problem. As Today's Zaman reports, the meeting "took place in a positive atmosphere followed by constructive remarks by both leaders."
Not really news, it would seem. So why, then, did the paper decide to use its front page to tell readers about two politicians having a friendly chat? The answer, of course, is that in the Turkish context, Erdogan -- leader of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) -- and the CHP leader having a "positive" and "constructive" meeting is big news. Until a few months ago, the pro-secularist CHP was run by long-time politician Deniz Baykal, who had very little to say to Erdogan and relied on obstructionist and rejectionist policies. This all came to an end in early May when footage appeared online showing Baykal in a compromising situation with his former secretary, forcing him to resign.
The selection of Kilicdaroglu, a mild-mannered former public servant nicknamed "Ghandi," has revitalized the CHP and suddenly made it a more pronounced electoral threat to the AKP, which has won the last two elections by wide margins. (For more background, take a look at this previous Eurasianet article.) In that sense, the "no news" of Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu is actually big news, since the AKP had come to count on the CHP's previous confrontational -- and ultimately self-defeating -- style to work in its favor. As one cabbie in Istanbul put it to me recently, "Erdogan got used to Baykal buttering his bread. With butter!"
Up until now, many analysts have said that Turkey's main political problem is the lack of a proper and legitimate opposition. That may be changing now -- thanks to a sex scandal.
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