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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000243 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/12/2020 
TAGS: PGOV PINR TU
SUBJECT: NATIONALIST ACTION PARTY: GOOD COP, BAD COP 
 
REF: ANKARA 237 
 
Classified By: POL Counselor Daniel O'Grady, for reasons 1.4 (b,d) 
 
¶1.  (C) Summary.  Though not in full election mode, the 
Nationalist Action Party (MHP) appears to have begun its 
planning for national elections now set for mid-2011.  Talks 
with senior party members suggest that the strategic party 
organs are kicking into gear to develop an election and 
post-election strategy while individual members are 
increasing their relentless tactical criticism of AKP.  The 
approach has a "good cop, bad cop" effect, in which the party 
says encouraging things behind the scenes while MHP's baser 
instincts give it an ugly outward image.  Whether the two 
approaches can meld into a coherent message is debatable. 
End summary. 
 
¶2.  (C) The MHP has gone to great lengths to square a 
political circle:  its core grassroots membership is starkly 
nationalistic, fairly xenophobic, and, at least in the past, 
prone to violence; but the party aspires to become a truly 
national party, which would require support from 
intellectuals, cosmopolitan cities, and ethnic and religious 
minorities.  So far, the 13-year leadership of Devlet Bahceli 
has partly succeeded in rebranding the party.  Violence is 
mostly relegated to the past and is no longer tolerated; the 
party administration includes a number of professors, former 
ambassadors, economists, and intellectuals; and the party is 
in no danger of failing to pass the ten percent national 
barrier to enter parliament. 
 
¶3.  (C) Nonetheless, it cannot yet claim to be a "national" 
party, in that its votes are concentrated in small pockets of 
central Anatolia.  The two main obstacles to MHP's breaking 
out nationally are that its xenophobic, violent past still 
repulses liberals and minority groups, and that MHP competes 
directly with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) 
for the large block of mildly conservative, Sunni, Turkish 
voters in the Anatolian heartland.  To address these 
weaknesses, the MHP appears to be preparing a twin message 
that MHP has the experience and ideology to lead a unified 
Turkey, and that AKP is the number one threat to building 
such a unified society. 
 
GOOD COP 
-------- 
 
¶4.  (C) MHP's General Secretary, Cihan Pacaci, outlined for 
us the constructive side of MHP's strategy as general 
legislative elections in 2011 near.  He noted that the MHP 
had previously been a fringe party with a violent reputation, 
and has worked since Devlet Bahceli became chairman in 1997 
to reverse this image.  Under Bahceli, he argued, the MHP has 
evolved its nationalist focus from being based on ethnic 
Turkish nationalism to being based on the shared culture, 
history, and language of all the people of Turkey, regardless 
of their ethnic or religious background.  An influx of 
academics, bureaucrats, and seasoned politicians from other 
conservative parties have helped to give the MHP a 
responsible image. 
 
¶5.  (C) Nothing was more beneficial to its rebranding effort, 
however, than the chance to prove itself as junior partner in 
Turkey's longest serving coalition government from 1999 to 
¶2002.  Pacaci claims that provinces in the western Anatolian 
interior are now firmly in MHP's camp and in some coastal or 
religious provinces -- considered to be the heartland of the 
Republican People's Party (CHP) and the AKP respectively -- 
MHP is competitive.  It is only natural, in his view, that as 
AKP's luster wears off, MHP will fill the void in religious 
nationalist provinces such as Kayseri, Sivas, and Erzurum. 
 
¶6.  (C) Pacaci was not blind to MHP's shortcomings, and said 
the party was working to address them before elections.  The 
first major concern for the party is that, despite its 
popular ideology and previous government experience, the MHP 
suffers from being associated with the economic meltdown of 
February, 2001.  To counter this, the MHP is planning to 
highlight its cadre of economists and other academics as part 
of its election campaign.  The second main concern is that 
large portions of the voting public -- particularly leftists 
and ethnic and religious minorities -- remember the 
xenophobic and violent MHP of the 1970s.  Pacaci was quick to 
 
ANKARA 00000243  002 OF 002 
 
 
note that not all cultural groups are distant to the MHP, 
noting that the MHP has no trouble attracting Arab or 
Circassian voters.  He said it is the groups that have been 
most prominently in the news recently -- the Kurds and Alevis 
-- who are most skeptical of the MHP.  Pacaci was optimistic 
that the Alevis would warm to the MHP.  He noted that before 
they voted for the CHP, many Alevi groups had voted for Adnan 
Menderes's Justice Party in the 1950s.  Today, with the AKP's 
religious motives under suspicion and the CHP making 
statements offensive to Alevis, the MHP could be able to win 
Alevis with its message of national unity through tolerance 
of diversity. 
 
¶7.  (C) Pacaci conceded that the Kurds would be a lost cause 
for the MHP in 2011.  Contented Kurds will vote for AKP and 
disaffected Kurds will vote for the Peace and Democracy Party 
(BDP), leaving little room for the MHP to make headway among 
a highly skeptical ethnic group.  He asserted, however, that 
Kurds would begin to vote for the MHP after 2011.  "Once we 
are elected into government, we can make the kinds of changes 
AKP is trying to make without dividing the country," he said. 
 "Then the Kurds will no longer be suspicious of us." 
 
ANGRY COP 
--------- 
 
¶8.  (U) The outward face of MHP, however, does not resemble 
Pacaci's nuanced picture.  Instead, the MHP is projecting an 
angry image and their members seem increasingly prone to 
verbal outbursts and attacks.  The parliamentary debates over 
AKP's National Unity Project highlighted the discomfort the 
MHP (and CHP) is feeling.  On February 3, MHP's anger brought 
Parliament to fisticuffs when Osman Durmus -- one of MHP's 
more academic faces -- sarcastically compared Prime Minister 
Erdogan to the Prophet Mohammed.  MHP Chairman Bahceli later 
warned AKP members to not come within a meter of MHP MPs' 
seats in the chamber, prompting Prime Minister Erdogan to 
speculate on Bahceli's mental health and democratic 
credentials. 
 
¶9.  (C) MHP Deputy Chairman Oktay Vural repeated sarcastic 
remarks against the Prime Minister in a recent meeting with 
us, and alleged that Turkish politics have now entered 
"election mode."  Vural himself then entered full election 
mode, describing Erdogan as the "number one threat" to 
Turkish democracy.  He complained bitterly that the vast 
majority of the media is subservient to the AKP, making it 
impossible for opposition parties' criticisms to get a fair 
hearing, and expressed the concern that his phones are tapped 
and that "any time" he or his family or friends could be 
arrested within the scope of the Ergenekon investigation.  He 
described the AKP as fundamentally anti-democratic in nature 
and structure, beholden to a religion above democracy, and 
questioned how anyone could believe that any step such a 
party could take would in any way further democracy.  Vural 
denied that anything AKP has done held any real democratic 
value, and claimed instead that all of the AKP's "democratic" 
reforms either protected the party itself from legal action 
or was done with the intent to curry votes among undecided 
voter groups.  He summed up by saying that it was the MHP's 
duty to inform the Turkish public of the harm AKP had caused 
Turkey over the last eight years, a job he clearly relishes. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶10.  (C) MHP's two faces -- responsible and intellectual on 
the one hand, aggressive and angry on the other -- 
individually have their political merits, but may not mesh in 
practice.  Prime Minister Erdogan has already thrown the 
accusation of anti-democratic values back at MHP ("Mr. 
Bahceli would know more about fascism than I do."), and an 
attack dog image could serve to undermine the party's 
responsible image if negatively spun.  Still, the fact that 
members of MHP's senior leadership are thinking creatively 
and positively on minority issues suggests that MHP could be 
a constructive actor in Turkish politics, if it so chose. 
Jeffrey