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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000118 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL OSCE TU
SUBJECT: WITH ELECTION IN THE BAG, SISLI MAYOR AIMS HIGHER 
 
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Summary 
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¶1.  In a meeting earlier this week with PolOffs, Mustafa 
Sarigul, Mayor of Istanbul's Sisli District, focused more on 
his national ambitions than he did on the local elections 
scheduled for March 29.  With polls showing some 80 percent 
of the District supporting him for a third term, Sarigul can 
perhaps be forgiven for looking ahead. 
 
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Mayor For Life In Sisli, If He Wants It ... 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  Istanbul's Sisli District is one of Turkey's most 
important business centers.  Four hundred of Turkey's 500 
largest companies have offices in the district.  Home to some 
300,000 residents, during workdays its population swells to 
four million.  In a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim, 
seventeen percent of Sisli's voters are Christians or Jews, 
and the country's largest Armenian neighborhood is in the 
District.  In the 2004 local elections, Sarigul, running for 
re-election as a candidate of Turkey's secular Republican 
People's Party (CHP), won 66 percent of the vote (a national 
record, he told us). 
 
¶3.  The 53 year-old Sarigul first attained national 
prominence in 1987, when he became the youngest person ever 
elected to Parliament.  Last year, after unsuccessfully 
challenging Deniz Baykal for the CHP leadership in a close 
vote, he was booted out of the party.  (Sarigul told us he 
blamed his short temper for the loss.)  After a short period 
as an independent, he joined the Democratic Left Party (DSP), 
under whose banner he will vie for a third term as Sisli's 
mayor in the local elections scheduled for March 29.  There 
is no doubt that he will win:  He has 20,000 campaign workers 
(one for every ten voters); 40,000 people attended his 
opening campaign rally; and polls show his support around 80 
percent. He attributes his success to "very intensive, 
one-on-one contact," a good team and a record of providing 
constituent services (education and handicapped assistance 
programs, in particular). 
 
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... But He Has A Bigger Prize In Mind 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  Sarigul has set his sights on the Prime Ministry.  While 
he expects the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to 
get 45-50 percent of the vote in the local elections (a 
prediction in line with consensus estimates), he thinks this 
will be AKP's last electoral victory.  He notes that no 
Turkish party has ever won three general elections in a row, 
and predicts that this same fate awaits AKP in the 2011 
national elections.  He says Erdogan's two biggest advantages 
are Baykal and Bahceli (leaders of the two largest opposition 
parties, widely scorned for their fecklessness).  He believes 
that an effective opposition leader (to wit, him) can 
successfully challenge Erdogan.  Indeed, Sarigul fancies 
himself to be a post-partisan politician, as shown by his 
leadership of the Sisli District Council:  While the Council 
has 29 CHP and 8 AKP members (and no DSP member), Sarigul 
claims that 97 percent of its decisions are arrived at by 
consensus, thanks to his leadership. 
 
¶5.  Sarigul has not yet chosen the vehicle that he will use 
to make his run at the Prime Ministry.  He was quite clear to 
us that his association with DSP was strategic, and that if 
DSP did not make the changes he feels necessary to support 
his national ambitions (polls show DSP currently commands the 
support of but two percent of voters), he would quit the 
party and form a new social democrat party.  "History will 
not write about what I did as leader of a party," he said, 
"but what I did as Prime Minister."  He claimed the support 
of several (unnamed) prominent political leaders, as well as 
of some 120,000 volunteers in all 81 provinces, waiting to 
spring to action once he makes his decision.  He is not 
concerned about financing a campaign, saying that with 
popular support, the money will come.  He will start 
organizing right after the local elections, and will make a 
decision how to proceed 3-4 months later. 
 
¶6.  In several ways Sarigul does not fit the mold of a 
 
ISTANBUL 00000118  002 OF 002 
 
 
Turkish politician: 
 
--  He is proud of his outreach to minority communities.  He 
has appointed an Armenian deputy mayor (who participated in 
our meeting), and supports opening the border with Armenia. 
He is pro-Israel and was very impressed by Israeli President 
Peres, with whom he met nine months ago.  He has publicly 
criticized Erdogan's Davos behavior, and visited the Israeli 
consulate after the Davos incident to deliver this message 
personally to the Israeli Consul General.  (These positions 
manifestly must be driven by principle, since even in Sisli 
the minority communities are too small to influence elections 
and nationally voters strongly support Erdogan's actions.) 
 
-- He is as interested in and familiar with international 
affairs as with domestic affairs. He considers himself to be 
something of a diplomat (again, in pointed contrast to 
Erdogan, who relishes his reputation as a street fighter), 
and claims to be as familiar with international issues as 
with domestic issues.  His office is filled with pictures of 
him meeting with international religious and political 
figures. 
 
-- He is an unabashed fan of the U.S. and of EU accession. He 
believes that Turkey can be the leader of the Middle East and 
Central Asia, with the U.S. as its "main ally."  He has 
opened an EU Center at the municipal building, and is working 
on a waste management program with the EU. 
 
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Comment 
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¶7.  During our meeting, Sarigul repeatedly compared himself 
to U.S. President Obama, but in fact he more closely 
resembles the man he hopes to succeed:  Turkish Prime 
Minister Erdogan.  Both are charismatic, natural leaders, who 
breed intense loyalty in their followers.  Both are tireless 
campaigners and workaholics, tightly focused on constituent 
services and outreach.  Both know how to raise the money 
needed to fund their ambitions.  Both have short fuses and 
explosive tempers.  But, whereas Erdogan is openly religious 
and proud of his working class roots, Sarigul is secular and 
fancies himself to be urbane.  The Turkish commentariat has 
long bemoaned the absence of a competent secular opposition 
party with credible leadership and modern organizational 
capabilities.  Just as Erdogan emerged from Istanbul to 
displace bland, tired party leaders on the right, Sarigul may 
be the Istanbul voice to rejuvenate the left. 
Wiener