Musical harmony in Turkey's election contest

ISTANBUL

 Amid the speeches, claims and counter-claims one constant makes Turkish elections stand out from many others: music.

From the fleets of election vans blaring out party tunes, to front-line politicians singing or playing musical instruments on TV, Turkish contests are more musical than most.

Like Bill Clinton on the saxophone, or former Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Jack Lynch singing in front of thousands in his home city of Cork, music and politics in Turkey are often mixed.

Although most Turkish politicians are not very keen on singing publicly, Turkey’s decade-long leader and now president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, might be seen occasionally singing his favorite song Beraber Yuruduk Biz Bu Yollarda, meaning ‘We Walked This Road Together,’ at different occasions, from rallies to TV shows.

When Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas surprised television viewers by playing a tune on the saz – a traditional stringed instrument popular in Anatolian folk music – he became just the latest high-profile figure to try their musical skills on Turkey’s electorate.

Ahead of Turkey’s June 7 general election, pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas began playing the saz during a live interview on private TV channel CNN Turk on Wednesday night.

In the current-affairs show, called Tarafsiz Bolge -- meaning Neutral Zone -- hosted by journalist Ahmet Hakan Coskun, Demirtas also sang traditional folk songs.

It was not first such performance by the 42-year-old HDP leader, who is trying to take his party past a 10 percent electoral threshold to enter the Turkish parliament as a Kurdish party for the first time.

He recorded an election song accompanied by Kurdish singer Hozan Diyar earlier this month.

Turkey’s prime minister and ruling AK Party leader, Ahmet Davutoglu, has also grasped the microphone on a number of occasions, once singing along with professional musicians at this year’s Newroz spring festival in March.

He was singing a patriotic song called Memleketim, meaning ‘My Country,’ which was popular during the 1970s Cyprus conflict which divided the Mediterranean island into Greek and Turkish states.

For this election campaign Davutoglu has also had a song written in his name.

The song is called, ‘Davutoglu Ahmet Hoca, a brave man,’ and is actually a cover of old heroic ballad called Kiziroglu Mustafa Bey, remade by Turkish singer Erhan Guleryuz.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) released a campaign song during the 2014 Turkish local elections, in which all candidates sang along – except party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu who appeared only at the end the of video, not singing but speaking.

Neither Kilicdaroglu nor Devlet Bahceli – the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party – have been seen singing much in public, although the CHP has several MPs with a musical background.

Tolga Candar and Sebahat Akkiraz are both well-known folk singers and were elected to the Turkish parliament at the 2011 general election.

One of this year’s more colorful candidates is visually impaired singer and songwriter Metin Senturk, who is standing as an independent.

German-born Turkish singer Ugur Isilak, who prepared the AK Party’s election campaign song, is also standing as a candidate in Istanbul.

Days ahead of the election all parties have released energetic campaign tunes. Musical vans drive around for hours playing these to an uncertain reception from local residents.

Although the musical ability of Turkey’s politicians varies, none of them can say that singing a song cost them their job. 

Other politicians have not been so lucky. In 1993, U.K. minister John Redwood was attending his Conservative Party’s conference in Wales.

The gathering traditionally ended with a chorus of Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau – the Welsh national anthem. Despite clearly not knowing the words, Redwood was filmed manfully pretending to sing along as the rest of the conference hall belted out the rousing tune...