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Page 1 — How much Erdoğan is in the new party?
Page 2 — Conservative, religious and highly emotionally attached to Turkey
The Turkish word Dava is an ambiguous term. In a legal sense it can mean, for example, an accusation. In the political context, however, Dava has a strong religious connection. There, Dava means something like invitation to Islam. One person who particularly likes to invoke the term Dava is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In its intended use, Dava means “the right way”. For his voters, it is a kind of reassurance that Erdoğan’s decisions always pursue a useful goal that serves the people.
Recently, the word Dava has acquired a new meaning. It stands for the acronym Democratic Alliance for Diversity and Awakening, a political association that some influential men from the Turkish community founded in Frankfurt am Main at the beginning of January. And there are quite a few who claim that the choice of the party name alone is an indication of the party’s supposed spiritual father: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
However, the party absolutely wants to avoid this impression to the outside world. In the press release she strikes a conciliatory tone. Dava wants to be a voice for those “who have so far been largely denied participation and who are not represented politically.” You want to be pro diversity and tolerance and against nationalism, xenophobia, anti-Muslim racism and anti-Semitism. They want to campaign for the rights of people with foreign roots, combat child and old age poverty and call for an ideology-free refugee policy. Dava wants to be on the ballot in the upcoming European elections in June. Due to the haste and the high approval requirements, it was not enough to properly found a party. Dava operates under the name “other political association”.
Doubts about the sincerity of the self-description
After the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance (BSW) and the Values Union, Dava is another party that is putting itself on the political map and claiming to fill a gap. If you believe the critics and observers, it is less about being a unifying force and making the world a better place, but rather about paving Erdoğan’s way onto the European stage and into German parliaments. But can Dava really be successful?
In any case, there are considerable doubts about the sincerity of the self-description. The founding had barely made the rounds publicly when CDU interior expert Christoph de Vries rumbled that the party’s aim was to “portray Muslims as victims of a racist majority society and act as their representatives.” The federal government should “under no circumstances take this party formation lightly.” The security authorities should be alarmed and intervene if the Turkish government exerts direct influence. The Dava’s reaction was immediate. In a statement published on Monday, the party complained about targeted defamation and inflammatory campaigns, especially from “old parties”. A term that is otherwise only heard from the AfD.
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Dava party leader Teyfik Özcan posted the statement on his Facebook page. There are other things to learn about his political career. For example, that he just left the SPD after 30 years of membership. He was encouraged in his decision by an “unprincipled Israel policy” and the silence on the “genocide of thousands of innocent children and women in Palestine.”
There is at least some evidence to support the fears that Dava could open the door for Erdoğan, first in Brussels and then in German politics. Dava has already named three candidates for the European elections. All three are well known in relevant circles of the Turkish community. For example, there is the Hamburg general practitioner Mustafa Yoldaş, in third place. He was head of the so-called International Humanitarian Aid Organization (IHH). It was banned in 2010 by the then Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière, because it was said to have supported organizations close to Hamas. In second place is Ali Ihsan Ünlü, also a doctor and a former powerful official at the Ditib mosque association, which is controlled from Ankara and has major problems with credibly distancing itself from Turkish nationalist, anti-Semitic and sometimes Islamist influences.
The top candidate is also considered a confidant of the Turkish president. For years, Fatih Zingal sat on the board of the Union of International Democrats (UID), the lobby association of Erdoğan’s AKP in Germany and Europe, based in Cologne. He was her press spokesman until the end. His office expired on schedule about two weeks ago, the lawyer said in an interview with ZEIT ONLINE. What is surprising is that he immediately gave up his membership in the UID. He doesn’t want to say why exactly. He is now pursuing “new challenges”.
For Eren Güvercin, Zingal’s nomination is almost proof enough that Erdoğan and his AKP are behind the founding of Dava. “It is no coincidence that Zingal, the most prominent face of the UID, has been made the top candidate,” says the deputy federal chairman of the FDP-affiliated Liberal Diversity. With Dava, Erdoğan is fulfilling a long-held wish. The idea of placing a party in the EU Parliament has been on his mind for a long time. “It was always his goal to influence the political discourse in Europe through the Turkish diaspora,” says Güvercin. With the mosque associations – Ditib alone operates around 900 congregations – the Turkish president in Germany has a powerful mobilization tool.
Güvercin suspects that the reform of citizenship law could also have been an additional motivation for founding a party. Around 2.8 million people of Turkish origin live in Germany, 1.5 million have a German passport, of which almost 300,000 have dual citizenship. Simplifying the double pass rule could add more than a million potential voters.
The Turkish word Dava is an ambiguous term. In a legal sense it can mean, for example, an accusation. In the political context, however, Dava has a strong religious connection. There, Dava means something like invitation to Islam. One person who particularly likes to invoke the term Dava is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In its intended use, Dava means “the right way”. For his voters, it is a kind of reassurance that Erdoğan’s decisions always pursue a useful goal that serves the people.