Turkey's rivals tussle for position, two years ahead of polls

ISTANBUL - 24 August 2017: In Turkey, the political temperature is so high that one could be forgiven for thinking that elections are just around the corner.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gives near daily speeches rousing the ruling party faithful, an emboldened opposition is planning unprecedented events and rumours fly of big changes in the political landscape.

In fact, the next elections will not be until local polls are held in March 2019, followed by elections in November the same year to choose parliament and president.

But the April referendum on expanding Erdogan's powers -- which he narrowly won -- altered Turkish politics to such an extent that all parties are now working in overdrive.

The tensions will come to a head this weekend -- just before the country packs up for over a week of holidays -- when both Erdogan and the head of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) -- hold competing events on the same day.

Erdogan will host a mass rally on Saturday in the eastern town of Malazgirt, commemorating the anniversary of a 1071 battle where pre-Ottoman Turkic tribes defeated Byzantine forces in a victory that helped open up Anatolia to Turks.

Almost at the opposite end of the country, CHP chief Kemal Kilicdaroglu will begin hosting a four-day "Justice Congress" in the western region of Canakkale, complaining of judicial abuses in the crackdown that followed the July 2016 failed coup.

Kilicdaroglu will be seeking to build on the surprising success of his "Justice March" earlier this summer where he walked from Ankara to Istanbul and rallied hundreds of thousands in the biggest opposition event in Turkey in years at its climax.

The combative president and the mildly-spoken opposition leader have traded bitter insults, with Erdogan's accusations against Kilicdaroglu even sparking speculation the CHP chief could be arrested, something the government denied.

In the latest spat, Erdogan mocked Kilicdaroglu for being photographed wearing an underwear vest while eating during the march. "It's an insult to my citizens," snorted the president.

- 'No easy task' -

The referendum transformed Turkish politics not just by handing Erdogan more powers -- which will apply only if he wins the 2019 polls -- but allowing him to again become chief of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) -- which took effect immediately.

Erdogan was party boss while he served as premier from 2003-2014, but under the old constitution was forced to sever his links with the party when he became president in 2014.

With the referendum won, he rapidly resumed his old job. But the narrow victory contained troubling signs for Erdogan and the AKP, despite a campaign heavily skewed in their favour.

Turkey's three biggest cities -- Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir -- all voted 'No' while many Kurds were put off by the AKP's alliance with nationalists.

"By responding to the ballot box signals, Erdogan is preparing the AKP for the 2019 polls," wrote Abdulkadir Selvi, the conservative commentator for the Hurriyet daily.

Since resuming the leadership, Erdogan has sought to reassert his dominance over the party bureaucracy, warning it was suffering from "metal fatigue", urging the need for renewal and saying that only he will determine the party's style.

"Erdogan's preparation to reshuffle the party grassroots organisation is a reflection of his desire to realign the party with the new reality of a single leader," said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara Office Director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Through its emphasis on justice, the CHP is sniffing around to see if there is value in alliances with other anti-Erdogan forces including even the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), whose leader Selahattin Demirtas has been in jail since last year.

And the nationalist sphere is also shaken by the vows of leading right-wing figure Meral Aksener to set up a new party to rival the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) of Devlet Bahceli which has become an ally of the AKP.

Unluhisarcikli, said the CHP is trying to increase the coherence of groups that opposed Erdogan in the referendum and unite behind a candidate who could defeat him in the second round in 2019.

But he warned: "This is no easy task as there is not much in common among those parties except opposing the AK Party and Erdogan."