The Electoral Strategy and Campaign of the Welfare Party

a search for a conception of the community to cope with the collective problems of justice and identity, it sought to revise shared understandings of “morality” as well as to address social and economic problems. ²⁹⁶

In the interview with Ersonmez Yarbay, who was former Ankara deputy of the WP from 1996 to 1999, gave these informations about ‘Just Order’:

“‘Just Order’ was a system proposed by Erbakan against monopolization. It aimed to remove unfair income distribution and form non interest economy. Mr. Erbakan emphasized ‘Just Order’

rhetoric till his death. This system aimed to decrease the sentimental value of money in care of public and remove interest. As members of the WP, we represented the poor in society. These poor demanded the removal of interest, however just their demand was not enough to manage it entirely. Thus, there was not much improvement about interest problem and ‘Just Order’. Yet, this is a worth-stressing issue. Another destructive problem of World is absolutely monopolization and unfair income distribution. ‘Just Order’ can be a solution to these problems if it is improved.” ²⁹⁷

Finally, it can be suggested that the implications of Just Order were widely disputed by different circles, but the party itself did not show this with its actions. However, whatever the implications were, Just Order was successful in providing a utopia to masses, who were desperate with the current conditions and the system, abandoned hope in other political parties, and who were damaged and excluded from modernization process economically.

thirty-three beads of the traditional Muslim rosary. According to this model, the WP placed a party member for each province, and this member placed other party agents to each district, street, and even apartment. By this way, inspectors check other organizations about local party activities. Moreover, if someone ²⁹⁸ needs financial aid because of a handicap, the local party organization never hesitates to extend help. Politics for the WP not only offered services and helped needy people, but also defined the symbols of Turkish society and shaped Muslim political imagination and social life. By establishing hegemony over the symbolic structure of Turkish society, the WP sought to become the hegemonic political force. ²⁹⁹

One of the most important features of the WP which separates it from other parties was the strong bond between voters and the party members. Being in touch with society, the notable party members used to test the waters of society and help them solve their problems. We can give an example of this: Black Sea Region is paternalistic conservative region. After the collapse of Soviet Union, so many Russians came to the Black Sea region not as refugees but to sell something, such as carpets and furniture. Also, so many prostitutes came to the Black Sea region. The women in this region were very strongly complained with this situation. In such a case, only Islamic ethics could be brought to readjust the society. Other things were not very effective to change. So, in 1994 elections, campaigns were started by WP. They learnt how to make a social research from the USA and they used the American companies. This was very dramatic because other political parties were just saying “You must vote us!”

without any research. But, WP members visited houses one by one not only in the Black Sea region but everywhere. They asked very detail questions, such as

“What are you complaining?”, “Which newspapers are you reading?”, “What kind of TV programs are you watching?” etc. With these questions, WP understood that women in the Black Sea region were complaining about prostitution. So, candidates of WP used this in the elections. They did not say

Ruşen Çakır, Milliyet Gazetesi, 10.04.1994.

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Yavuz, ibid., p. 77.

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“We will prohibit prostitution”, because in this case, Turkish men will not vote them. But, they cleaned out the Russian Bazaar and controlled the prostitution in hotels. So, the number of the prostitutes decreased. This was a very clever ³⁰⁰ and smart way to solve this problem.

When researches conducted on this subject were analyzed, it was seen that paternalism was quite dominant in Turkish society. As a natural result of this, individuals shaped their preferences and voted according to the decisions of their family or prominent figures of a sect. Savaş Genç, explained the effect of this condition on Turkish politics and democratization as follows:

“Turkish society has never been an organized society. Its organized state is also the organized state of paternalism, such as Bayburt Natives Association or Federation of Erzurum Natives (Bayburt and Erzurum are cities in Turkey). This is also because the common characteristic of Turkish society is their reluctance to read and tendency to receive information from televisions at the rate of 75%. Looking at this general picture, it is really difficult to expect ³⁰¹ anything other than traditional voting preferences. The fact that vote rate of AKP and WP is quite low among educated people is remarkable.” ³⁰²

Thought team of WP analyzed this situation quite well, designed their election strategy accordingly, and was able to receive the votes of the public.

Advertisements published/broadcast in national newspapers, televisions and billboards showed that WP explicitly aimed to reach the voters in the cities, and reflected the "modernizing" side of the party. It has been observed that rural-urban migration increased in Turkey especially in the 1990's, and WP aspired to

The interview with Masanori Naito, 18.12.2016.

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Metropol Research Company, August, 2017.

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The interview with Savaş Genç, 13.09.2017.

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receive the votes of this section of the society. Beyond vote expectations, ³⁰³ party's advertisements intended for urban people was its attempt to

"whitewash," legitimize itself and reach reconciliation. As a matter of fact, WP found a base in metropolitan cities for the first time in 1991 elections and started to reach big cities by keeping its traditional voters. The significance and ³⁰⁴ success of the campaign was due to WP combining its program with a successful campaign strategy. As discussed in the title above, the name of this program was "Just Order."

When WP's advertising campaigns starting from 1991 elections are analyzed, it is seen that, as distinct from other parties, these advertisements were built on the images, concerns, exclusion, and oppression of economically deprived, culturally and economically excluded persons, who were unhappy with the existing system, instead of leader image. The way party realized the ³⁰⁵ fact that economic poverty and identity crisis go hand in hand for the

"oppressed" sections of the society in Turkey and reflected this in their advertisements made them different from examples of advertisements for other political parties in Turkey. During the interview, Lütfi Kibiroğlu's following statement supports this agreement: “Our party's message was directly intended for reaching the economically deprived section, that is, a majority of the society.” With this campaign, WP sympathized with the problems and wishes ³⁰⁶ of this section and promised that these problems will be solved by WP government with an attitude, which was far from elitism.

Being close to the public, understanding their language and talking like them was what distinguished WP from other parties. When the language of WP's advertising texts are analyzed, it is seen that it was used in accordance with the common members of the society; their language, profiles, and

For more on rural-urban migration, see. Ertuğrul Güreşçi, “The Phenomenon of the Urban - Rural 303

Migration in Turkey”, Doğuş University Journal, 11 (1), p. 79.

Serdar Şen, Refah Partisi’nin Teori ve Pratiği, Sarmal Publication, Istanbul, 1995, p. 81.

304

Şen, Ibid., p. 81.

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The interview with Lütfi Kibiroğlu, 08.04.2016.

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discourse. The everyday language was used effectively, expressions with social and cultural codes, such as "may you have a fruitful day," "turning my wife's gold into cash" "no money in and outside the house," "being unable to meet ends meet" were frequently included in the advertising text. In this way, texts ³⁰⁷ were made to be more sincere and intelligible to a standard reader.

The WP made a very effective campaign not only in domestic but also in abroad especially in Europe and established strong bonds with Turkish people there. Here are the statements of Ersonmez Yarbay about this:

“Thanks to our European Views of Ummah Organization, we had very strong bonds with our citizens who were workers in most European countries especially Germany. We often had meetings with those people, and we clearly observed their support. They gave financial support to Movement many times. This absolutely showed that the movement was adopted sincerely by the society. Besides, The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) sent social aids to needy citizens abroad, and this gave us a chance to be known by Muslim communities there.”³⁰⁸

According to Hakan Yavuz:

“One of the main reasons for the WP’s success is the relative autonomy of its district organization to utilize local resources, devise its own strategies, and adopt the local language to win elections. The other parties have centralized campaign strategies and lack flexibility in verbal communication and face-to-face exchanges.

For example, when representatives of the WP visit a family after the burial ceremony, they bring a human touch that differentiates the

Tanju Tosun and Gülgün Tosun, “18 Nisan Seçimlerindeki Oy Kaymalarının İstatiksel Yorumu”, 307

Milliyet, 30 April 1999.

The interview with Ersönmez Yarbay, Ankara, 10.06.2016.

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party from the callous and faceless image of other political parties.

In the March 1994 elections, the TPP organized only twelve coffeehouse meetings in the Maltepe neighborhood of Istanbul, while the WP held forty-three and one or two meetings on almost every night in coffeehouses or in private houses. Moreover, after the elections, the WP continued bimonthly meetings.” ³⁰⁹

Again, Ersonmez Yarbay emphasized that one of the most important factors for his party’s success was ‘Rosary Model’. He stated:

“The WP had to be everywhere that human beings lived. For this reason, we had party agents in every city, county, district, avenue, street and even apartment, and we always checked their activities.

Everyone worked to reach the best rate by dealing with the people one to one. For instance, there were ballot boxes in elections. Let’s say that each box has 200 voters. During the election, we began sending a party representative to each box in order to keep in touch with the voters. Let’s think that there are one hundred thousand boxes, and in this case, we aimed to reach two hundred thousand representatives with one extra helper party member for each box. As the WP, we put up candidates everywhere in every election. This was one of the most important reasons for success. We had candidates in every city and district even if we knew we would fail.

In the regions where we could not find any candidate, we had assigned-candidates. For instance, if we don’t have any candidate in Tunceli (a city of Turkey), we assigned one of our members there as a candidate. We defended that if we were on the right side, then our thoughts would be everywhere. It was not important to win or lose.

The important point was to emphasize our right thoughts.” ³¹⁰

Yavuz, ibid., p. 78.

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The interview with Ersönmez Yarbay, Ankara, 10.06.2016.

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The points explained by a parliament member of the period seemed to support the discourse in WP's election bulletin. Nominating candidates for each region and municipality 'even if it is known that the election will not be won' was a strategy, which was not adopted in Turkey before.