Can The AK Party Win The Election Despite Erdoğan?

Among all party leaders preparing for the upcoming elections, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu must be the one facing the hardest challenges. The reason is not that, unlike other party leaders, he shoulders the responsibility of being prime minister and the head of the ruling party.
Davutoğlu's most formidable adversary is President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and it seems it is not a walk in the park to counterbalance him. Erdoğan is increasingly becoming a real burden on the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). We should not rule out the possibility that this ever-increasing burden will emerge as a serious impediment and the AK Party may lose the election because of this obstacle.
Davutoğlu is reportedly interviewing hundreds of prospective deputy candidates. The candidates who wish to run for Parliament from the ranks of the AK Party cannot know if it is Davutoğlu or Erdoğan who will have the final say over the lists of deputy candidates. It is known that there is a harsh competition going on between the two politicians, but who will win, no one can know until April 7, when the candidate lists will be finalized.
Erdoğan delivering several controversial speeches in a day is a sign of the intra-party struggle. Marketing his energy and capacity for setting the agenda, Erdoğan is telling everyone that he is the boss. Davutoğlu, on the other hand, moves silently and furtively and speaks only when it is absolutely necessary to meddle with such developments as the recent rift between government spokesman Bülent Arınç and Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek.
Certain possibilities will have an impact on the outcome of June 7. The real election competition will be between Erdoğan and Davutoğlu. If Erdoğan wins, the AK Party will be defeated in the election. If Davutoğlu wins, there is still a likelihood that the party will win. Depending on the outcome of this competition, certain parties will find more favorable conditions to flourish. This state of unstable balance stems from Erdoğan.
First of all, even the supporters of the AK Party perceive Erdoğan's overstepping his powers and authorities to meddle in the party as a dictatorial tendency. Erdoğan's proposal to introduce a presidential system -- which he dubs a Turkish-type presidential system and is apparently a very arbitrary system -- is seen as a cover for these dictatorial tendencies and this elicits their reactions. Polls suggest that at least one-third of AK Party voters are against the presidential system.
Not only does the presidential system worry the people, but so does the way Erdoğan advocates for it. "The parliamentary system has been in the waiting room," Erdoğan frequently says, and this implies that the system he proposes imparts unlawfulness and uncertainty, which in turn raises concerns about instability and chaos. Coupled with expectations about an imminent economic crisis ushered in by exchange rate fluctuations, these concerns evolve into clear political stances. Davutoğlu's use of Arınç to voice objections about the presidential system and the AK Party's not making the presidential system the main component of its election campaign further exacerbate the worries.
Erdoğan's and Davutoğlu's having different political targets has given the bureaucracy vast room and extensive initiative. The bureaucracy likes such uncertainties where it can establish its own power. In the end, the control over the state's administration is being lost.
The pro-government media outlets personally controlled by Erdoğan are faltering. All big propaganda campaigns -- apparently sponsored by Erdoğan -- have failed. Of these, the Kabataş incident, in which then-Prime Minister Erdoğan claimed that a headscarved woman along with her baby was violently attacked by a group of around 80 protesters at the Kabataş ferry station in İstanbul in early June of 2013 at the height of the Gezi Park protests, and the claims about assassination plots targeting Erdoğan's daughter were marketed with much fanfare, but they all ended up in smoke. More recently, the pro-government media outlets published documents showing Fethullah Gülen, a well-respected Turkish Islamic scholar, was a Mason -- although they had previously accused him of being a radical Islamist -- but those documents were soon found to be forgeries. Such media campaigns further undermine Erdoğan's trustworthiness.
Thus, Erdoğan has become a real burden on the AK Party. We are going through the last stages in the competition, and entering the election with this burden, the AK Party does not have the chance to win the election despite Erdoğan.

MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE (Cihan/Today's Zaman)