ALL CHANGE ON ONE DAY

On 10 May, Deniz Baykal - the leader of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) - was forced to quit the post he had occupied for the last 18 years over a "sex" scandal which flared up in the press.

The scandal broke after a video appeared on the Internet showing the fun and games enjoyed by the 71-year-old politician in the company of party colleague Nesrin Baytok. A furious Baykal described the posting of the video as a "plot against law and morals". The politician's indignation was roused, among other things, by the fact that unknown men had broken into his house to install listening and recording devices.

He said that his resignation should be seen not as a sign of weakness or surrender of his position, but as a demand for the protection of individual rights and a reform of the public conscience. At the same time, the opposition leader stressed that no attack of this kind against opponents of the government would have been possible without the knowledge of the ruling elite.

The face of the opposition losing face?

Baykal became "the face of the Turkish opposition" on 3 November 2002, when the party he led came second in parliamentary elections, with 19.4 per cent of votes. Despite intensive internal opposition, led by Mustafa Sarigul of the Shishli municipality in Istanbul, Deniz Baykal managed to retain his post and prevent a split in the party.

RPP supporters backed the course he outlined with 20.8 per cent of the vote in the 2007 elections, in which Deniz Baykal and his supporters again came second. The latest polls showed that a sharp fall in Baykal's rating by public opinion had not been anticipated, but everything changed on one day. Realizing this, the opposition leader said that he would not return to the post of party chairman, although he did not rule out taking a further part in the country's political life.

An opinion poll carried out by the popular newspaper Hurriyyet immediately after Baykal's resignation, indicated that, just three days after the scandal, 11.8 per cent of respondents wanted him to return to RPP leadership.

At the same time, the bulk of opposition supporters (60.1 of the 300,000 respondents) thought that a new type of a politician was necessary to lead the party. This, in their opinion, is currently the leader of the parliamentary faction, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, although the politician himself does not want to lead the party at this stage.

This is less significant, however, as the image of Baykal's party has been tainted and the RPP will lose voters ahead of the 2012 elections. The party has provided tough opposition over many years to most ruling Justice and Development Party initiatives, considering it to be a threat to the secular regime in Turkey. Two years ago Baykal's lawsuit in the Constitutional Court placed the ruling party in jeopardy, with the threat of closure, for its attempts to remove a ban on women wearing Muslim headscarves in public places.

The opposition, including supporters of Deniz Baykal, oppose government-proposed amendments to the constitution. They believe that the amendments serve only to strengthen the government's position. Having prevented the ruling party's initiative from being endorsed by the parliament, the opposition did not let the ruling party's initiative to pass through parliament, and compelled the government to hold a referendum, which is scheduled for 12 September.

Now, with voters' confidence in Baykal and his party dwindling, the ruling elite's chances of legitimising the package of amendments in the referendum have improved. If the RPP does not elect a strong leader in the weeks to come who is able to prevent a split in the party, success for the government's initiative will be guaranteed.

Curiously enough, the scandal around Deniz Baykal also struck at the position of the ruling Justice and Development Party. There are opinions, within both ranks of the opposition and society, that the downfall of the RPP leader was made possible by the ruling elite turning a blind eye to the dissemination in the media of a video of intimate details of his private life.

As is often the case, it is very likely that it will not be possible to find the real perpetrators and the video tape trail has already gone cold somewhere in Canada. In this situation, the only way-out for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to stick to the principle of not tolerating interference in people's private lives. In the government camp they understand that, with modern technology, no-one is insured against what happened to Deniz Baykal, and that any politician may be caught by similar "sabotage".

Anyway, if Erdogan's party is able to find the person behind a scandal which has virtually transformed Turkey's political scene, then the authorities will remove suspicion from themselves and the RPP alone will have to "foot the bill" for Deniz Baykal. If the trail of the "plot" leads to one of the political parties, the situation may change radically.

Another opposition leader, Devlet Bahceli, in third place by the number of members of parliament, has not failed to take advantage of the situation. Addressing members of his Nationalist Action Party, Devlet Bahceli described as "shameful" the attacks on Deniz Baykal's private life, urging the government to wash this "black spot" from the country's political life.

Political experts do not rule out the shaping of a new opposition force by those striving to change power in Turkey and beat Erdogan's government in the 2012 elections. It is clear that neither the efforts of the RPP over the past eight years, nor attempts to disrupt the ruling party from the inside have been successful. Therefore, a plan was drafted to change the main opposition party's structure, a structure whose rating does not exceed 20-30 per cent.

However, a "new design" for the Turkish opposition may not emerge. As it turns out, it is very difficult to find a replacement for Baykal. More than ten candidates are already tilting at the post of leader of the RPP - a scenario heading for a domestic "showdown" in the camp of Erdogan's opponents.

This automatically leads to a weakening of the leading opposition force and even to the formation of a new left wing party, which may fill the gap formed by supporters of Deniz Baykal.