TURKEY's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is fixated on Nov. 1.The elections that day could see his AK Party retrieve the absolute parliamentary majority it lost in June or it could see voters once more reject Erdogan's increasingly autocratic rule and his plans to vest the presidency with considerable executive powers. He is unleashing whatever weapons he can to destroy the party, which robbed him of his political dominance in the summer election. The People's Democratic Party (HDP), a moderate Kurdish-based group has condemned the terrorist PKK. HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas has demanded a return of the ceasefire. But Erdogan is not interested in joining with Demirtas to push for an end to the new outbreak of fighting between the Turkish armed forces and the PKK. Indeed the renewed conflict could not have been better calculated to boost nationalist support for the AKP. And of course, that is what is widely suspected. Erdogan is seeking to win the election on the bodies of dead soldiers and civilians in the fresh fighting with and bombing of the PKK. But the HDP's electoral success was only in part brought about by support from moderate Kurds. The party also drew in the votes of many, particularly among the middle class, who have become extremely uneasy at Erdogan's dictatorial behavior. These people were by no means all the usual liberal, left-wing suspects. During huge sit-ins and demonstrations against Erdogan's peremptory order that a much-loved Istanbul park be built upon, TV crews interviewed bourgeoise housewives, sharp-suited businessmen and even two modestly-dressed cleaning ladies from the city's Fatih district. This was one part of Istanbul from which Erdogan drew strong support when he was the city's highly-regarded mayor in the 1990s. But Erdogan has changed from those days. He has fallen out with political allies, most spectacularly with Fethullah Gulen, fired advisers who told him what he did not want to hear and rowed with bankers and the business community. He and his government are the constant victims of conspiracies. First there was the Ergenekon plot by retired and serving military officers, journalists and intellectuals. Then, after breaking with Gulen, he accused his former ally of rigging corruption allegations and faking audio recordings in which he and other members of his government and family can be heard planning corruption. Senior police officers and prosecutors involved in the investigation of government payola were fired or transferred in a blatant display of the misuse of power. It was therefore no surprise that Erdogan has also targeted the press and media. Individual journalists have been jailed, encouraging a degree of self-censorship, the avoidance of contentious issues. But with the election less than six weeks away, and the real possibility of a further and more devastating humiliating defeat for the AKP, the press has become emboldened. A scurrilous attack by a publication called Nokta this week led to its enforced closure and charges of insulting the presidency. But at the same time, the government also moved against the large Dogan media group, which had published unauthorized pictures of dead Turkish soldiers. Given that Erdogan is counting on anti-PKK feeling undermining the vote for the HDP, this action seems odd. The pictures will surely have helped stoke voter feelings. But then what really angered the ever-more controlling Ankara was that the media had not been authorized to use the pictures.
