CHP Campaign Pledges Stir Concern Within Crisis-Hit AK Party

An economy-focused election manifesto recently unveiled by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has resulted in a swift and negative reaction from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which is already disturbed by talk of an economic crisis by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu announced his party's election manifesto, titled “A livable Turkey,” on Sunday. Many of the pledges were centered on improving living standards for the lower-income segments of society. He promised to raise the minimum wage by 58 percent, from TL 949 ($354) to TL 1,500 ($560). Kılıçdaroğlu also pledged to significantly raise the amount of social aid granted to poor families and offer additional support to retirees and the elderly. Claiming that there are 17 million people living below the poverty line in Turkey, Kılıçdaroğlu accused the AK Party of managing poverty instead of taking steps to eradicate it.
The CHP leader vowed to eliminate poverty by the end of a CHP-led, four-year government term. “I promise -- that's on my word of honor -- that there will no longer be any poor people in Turkey within four years,” he said on Sunday in Ankara. Key AK Party figures rushed to challenge the CHP leader on Monday, including Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who described the CHP manifesto as “made of dreams” over the weekend, suggesting that it is impossible for the main opposition party to realize these goals. Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek claimed on Monday that the CHP would not be able to fulfill its promises, adding that he himself would vote for the CHP if it was able to carry out such plans.
However, Şimşek diverged with Erdoğan over the latter's claim that the country was going through a “temporary economic crisis.”
“There is a temporary slowdown but it cannot be considered a ‘crisis.' Last year Turkey's growth rate was 2.9 percent, higher than many developed countries,” Şimşek said. Erdoğan's statement on Saturday was the first public declaration from a top official that the country's economy is in crisis. Economic growth, a pillar of the AK Party's electoral strength over the past decade, is flagging, economic data indicate. Turkey's economic growth fell short of the government's target in 2014, while the country's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita fell, official data showed on Tuesday.
GDP growth slowed to 2.9 percent in 2014 from 4.2 percent the preceding year, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) showed earlier this month, signaling a major headache for the AK Party, which has had a solid record on the economy since coming to power in 2002 and is aiming for a sweeping victory in this year's elections. TurkStat announced on Monday last week that the unemployment rate rose from 10.9 percent in December to 11.3 percent in January, the highest since April 2010.
Erdoğan has said that a “Turkish-style presidential system” will breathe new life into the economy and has constantly reiterated his desire to remodel the country's government into an executive system based around the presidency. The CHP manifesto, on the other hand, vows a strengthened parliamentary system in which the president has limited powers regarding appointments to senior state posts and the judiciary and an “accountable” and “modest” budget. Legislation that currently allows prosecution of citizens on the grounds of “insulting the president” will also be lifted, according to the CHP.
Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Işık also swiftly denounced the CHP election manifesto on Monday. “Mr. Kılıcdaroğlu has made several pledges that cannot be delivered and that are impossible due to the confines of the current budget. The package that he has announced is one that will put Turkey at the mercy of the [International Monetary Fund] IMF,” Işık said.
Breaking taboos
Kılıçdaroğlu responded to criticism in a televised program on Monday, accusing the government of wasting Treasury resources and claiming that the AK Party has spent more between 2003 and 2014 than all the previous governments of the Turkish Republic combined.
“In 12 years you spent this money. Moreover, you did it while selling off all the facilities built in previous years,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, referring to the high number of privatization tenders conducted by the ruling party in which public companies and facilities have been sold off to private sector buyers. Faik Öztrak, who is among the team that drafted the CHP's economy manifesto, told Today's Zaman on Monday that the party aimed at breaking the taboos in economy management and that the government is panicking. “The government has established a growth model based on you have to borrow large sums in foreign loans. … We will concentrate on consumption and for this boosting buying power first and this is critical at a time of liquidity drought in global markets,” Öztrak said.
The CHP deputy said it will be easier for the party to implement ambitious goals since it will not be restricted or controlled by Erdoğan. “We will not have a limiting obstacle like Erdoğan; the CHP will pay attention to the Turkish business world's problems in a democratic atmosphere,” he added.
Another official defending the CHP's program was the party's İzmir deputy Erdal Aksünger, a senior advisor to Kılıçdaroğlu. Aksünger told Today's Zaman on Monday in Ankara that the CHP's economic pledges inspired public interest while stirring concerns within the ruling party. “Our program has begun to receive strong criticism from pro-government media and ruling party officials are doing their best to affect public opinion. But we are confident that this program will gain even more popularity as we approach the elections,” he said. Aksünger added that some well-known economists had contributed to the preparation of the CHP's economic plans.
According to economist Mithat Melen, the AK Party wasted the past decade without making the required structural reforms and this is why some of the public consider the CHP's economic program to be populist measures. “We lag in many fields, from welfare reforms to an equal distribution of wealth. … The CHP has to develop a more clear and understandable language to tell the people where it will get the money to realize these economic goals. They have to find remedies to key structural problems such as unemployment, a decline in foreign direct investment [FDI] and a lack of high-quality production,” Melen told Today's Zaman on Monday. (Cihan/Today’s Zaman)
Ali Aslan Kılıç in Ankara contributed to this report.